Wednesday 11 August 2021; 37km paddling
We woke up to another brilliant day: sunny with light winds, making for another relaxing and delightful day quietly paddling down the river. Later, some fluffy cumulus clouds provided some welcome shade.
We took a short cut at about 74km from Bourke through a very marginal flow in a channel only a couple of metres wide. Ted thought a fast pace would get us over some exposed roots that crossed the channel, but given the canoe and all its contents weighed more than ¼ tonne, that was never going to happen. We stopped abruptly with maybe 20cm making it over the roots. Being in the front, I had to get out, managing to avoid the mud by balancing on the roots, and drag the canoe over. As I pulled on the painter it snapped the Sony camera mount. Fortunately the camera fell into the boat and not the river. Ted didn’t want to get his feet wet so he ‘tried’ to help by pushing with his paddle on the muddy bottom. As we moved the canoe forward, he reached over and grabbed the roots to help move the canoe. However, Ted let go of his paddle and left it stuck in the mud behind. Of course, since I was already out I had to wade into the mud to retrieve the paddle. The Sony memory card failed to work so we lost footage of the shortcut and adventure from the front, but Ted managed to get some GoPro footage of me “returning the paddle to him”. I walked the canoe the next dozen metres to deeper water while Ted sat back barking instructions.
Old Yanda Homestead 
Louth volcanics
We stopped at the Darling River Campsite for lunch, where there was a couple from Sydney pulling up in their caravan, so Ted chatted to them while I got lunch organised. A dead trunk at the location was ringed with heavy steal fencing, so presumably some site of significance, possibly an aboriginal scar tree.
Further downstream another shortcut that on the air photos looked like it might not have enough water, turned out to be nice and deep and fully navigable, with a lone Black Swan leisurely swimming downstream. Three emus followed us along the bank looking very inquisitive about this strange red log with two humans on it. We passed the Yanda Campground and then pulled up for the night at the bend 100km from Bourke.
