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Trip Reports Sandon Sandon river | Sandon river | | Print | |
| Written by Josh | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sunday, 21 June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Kayak camping adventure (despite the threat of rain)  Ready to launch and the clouds look set to unleash hell This weekend's kayak camping expedition very nearly didn't happen, due tio heavy rains that persisted most of the day prior and into the night. It was still raining at 9AM when the suggestion was made that perhaps it really wasn't a very good idea to head out. I rang Holger and told him it looked like the trip had been canned, and observing the rain fall from his position at Brunswick Heads, he agreed that was probably best. But an hour later clouds started clearing and we started changing our minds. We got tp packing again and eventually managed to get message to Holger that we were heading out after all. For him that meant getting in his car immediately, because we had a couple of hours up on him. Fortunately for all, thats exactly how long we stuffed around for, and Holger managed to pull into the Sandon carpark just as were sliding the yaks into the water. The plan was for him to catch up and find us at an as-yet undisclosed location (we weren't sure on our final destination), but luckily we didn't have to put him through that.  Crusing upstream with the tide flowing in behind us Because of this Holger had to be completely self-sufficient just in case he couldn't find us, which was a very real possibility. I too was packed to be camping alone, as I thought that if it was raining hard at Sandon when we got there, the other guys might turn back. At that point I wouldn't have been willing to, so I had to be able to go solo. We launched just after 2PM with Holger not far behind, catching up to us only minutes later. We were Doug (Adventure), Troy (Adventure), Craig (Revo), Holger (Adventure) and me and my Adventure, rigged with a single ama and tramp. The tramp served beautifully as a storage platform for my XL 80 litre drybag and although the extra weight added by the ama did slow me down a bit, for the most part I kept up nicely.  Landing kayaks here is every bit as tricky as it looks We didn't have a lot of time to find a suitable camping spot, and we wanted to stretch our legs before pulling up, so we dug in and covered some 10km before nightfall. We discovered numerous worthy camping spots along the way, finally settling on one that offered a good raised platform and room enough for four or five tents. It was a little tricky to land as the water was very steep right up to the banks, although I had it pretty easy with the stability offered by the ama. This made a huge difference when launching the following morning to - while the other guys cautiously lowered themselves into their yaks, I just pushed the outrigger into the water, stepped on the tramp and into the yak. Too easy.  The camping kayak fleet has landed We had been incredibly lucky up to the point of landing, with rain holding off for pretty much the entire journey, in and back. Whilst it threatened rain almost the entire time, the only time that the heavens really did open up on us was, ironically, right as we started pitching our tents. As such, all of our inner tents got a little bit of a hosing. We'd all packed our gear in dry bags pretty well though and were well prepared for rain. I was pretty impressed with how my newly declared kayak camping rig fared and was equally impressed with how easy it was for us all to cram our yaks with whatever we needed. Holger's set up was very neat indeed.His kayak didn't even look like it was going camping, let alone completely self-sufficient. Doug, Troy and Craig were a little less minimalist in their approach, packing eskies, XL bed rolls, swags and a bulkyish tent. And there was room spare for more!  Not great fishing conditions, but very leisurely kayaking weekend Video coming soon! It was a very pleasant return trip and this time I put in a bit more of an effort to catch a fish. The water was fresh and muddy though, and for the most part we were moving too fast for bream. Holger did catch one on the drift and Craig hooked a small flatty, but they were the only fish caught for the weekend. We hardly fished hard though - it was more about the journey and the destination this time out and it was a refreshing change. For sure, we'll be back here to do it again some day, next time at a destination we found some 8km upstream, ideally suited for kayak campers. 
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