Back in the big smoke

That's right - we're back. And officially no longer homeless...

It's been a while since we've done anything blog-worthy (nothing much exciting about house-hunting/working/studying/bumming around). Last weekend, though, we got an offer from some of Ryan's workmates to go kayaking in Kangaroo Valley. Faced with an insanely hot weekend, a new flat with no air-conditioning and a mountain of boxes to unpack, we jumped at the offer.

It was still plenty hot enough in Kangaroo Valley, but the nice thing about kayaking is that the water is only inches away (or even closer depending on your paddling technique :)

We joined a group of six other people (some of Ryan's workmates, plus a few of their friends) and packed up an assortment of watercraft with our camping gear (which fortuitously arrived from Darwin the day before)(along with the BT - yay). We started at Bendeela and paddled a 25km stretch of the Kangaroo River down to Tallowa Dam, camping overnight along the way.

Kayaking is AWESOME :). Nothing but us, the splashing of paddles (plus the intermittent waterfight), and the river. AND not having to carry all our gear on our backs. Might have to remind Ryan of his promise that I could have a kayak once we left the croc-infested waterways of the NT...

Our overnight stop was along the banks of a side creek which was filled with a maze of drowned trees. We were heading for a camping spot up the backwaters of the creek, but after paddling round bend after bend and finding the creek to be stubbornly wide and persistently lined with steep, rocky banks, we settled on the only potential spot we had seen along the way - the remains of an old convict-built road which formed a perfect boat-ramp where it had been drowned by the dam. Ryan and I claimed the one patch of road which was covered with grass - no one seemed to mind, given that our tent ended up being about six inches from the water. After watching ominous looking clouds rolling in during the evening, flashing with lightning, we did wonder if we might get our feet wet.

Although it did rain a bit during the night, we happily stayed high(ish) and dry. After Palm Valley, can't help being just a little bit paranoid about floods...

We were all a bit tired and sore the next day, but it was only a few more hours of paddling to get down to the dam. Luckily we arrived when we did, because not long afterwards, the clouds rolled in again, the temperature plummeted and it started to rain. Two people in the group were planning on staying another night, then paddling down the Shoalhaven Gorge the next day - we all felt slightly guilty as we begged a lift on an earlier-than-planned hire-company bus and abandoned them to set up their tent in the rain.

We wrapped it all up with coffee and hot chocolate in the fudge shop, then parted ways and headed back to city. It was a fantastic way to spend a weekend - already plotting other potential waterways to explore.