Day Two (Race day one)

Up at five AM to; eat breakfast; pack tent; put boat in water; start racing.

Modern camping technology almost makes me consider camping as a legitimate recreational activity. I have been known to describe it as somewhere beteeen 5th & 6th class accommodation, but I could possibly think about it moving up to 4th. Anyway, tents pack down (and go up) in about 10 minutes which is handy. It's no harder to make real coffee (via a french press addition to the billy) than it would be to make instant, and substantially better for my mood. (I did actually burn myself, later in the week, when I put too much coffee in the press, but that's not really a camping incident. More of a stumbling around at 4 am incident.) Liz has actually pre-packed all her meals for the week, so it's sort of just a question of getting dressed & grabbing the bag. I was worried about the AM routine before we left, but in reality every morning ran pretty smoothly.

I'm sure the paddlers were nervous - if "trepidatious" was a word, I think it would probably be more accurate -, but the road crew was already busy. Our waiting around (nervous, in my case, about whether I could find another place to stock up on water between checkpoints) came in the middle of the day. Not just our paddlers either - every other morning except the first we had no trouble getting volunteers to help move the boat, but on the first day everybody was very focussed and inward-looking. Since most of them had done it before and actually knew what they were in for, I can't say I blame them.

The guy on the left, Chris, aka Zeus, is taking his last rest for the day. He paddles that thing standing up, and he spent the next 12 hours on his feet paddling 90 km. He's our coach. I'm not sure if you could call him attention seeking, but if you google the 2009 Murray marathon, I think you'll find his name more than any other. If he wasn't on commission from the paddleboard company, then he ought to have been. there must have been 20 people queuing up to try it after the finish in Swan Hill.

Marshalling was at 6:40 for a 7 am start (to be adjusted later for the quicker boats, but that was never going to be us, so these times were typical). We were nearly late once, but not today.

The race gun was something of an antique; I suspect it may have been in use since 1968, which is when the race was first held. It made a substantial noise. The case in which it lives, along with its backup, has a participation medal attached to the outside for each year it has been used. I didn't count them, but there were a lot. This was the 41st year, and the 1st year it has been run by the YMCA as opposed to the Red Cross.

(The more alert amongst you may have spotted that the background in this picture is not the same as the other Race Day one pictures. Correct. Well spotted. This picture comes from RD 3, but in narrative terms it belongs here. Cue discussion by Errol Morris, for those interested in the mechanics & ethics of photography)

I didn't get many good pictures of the start; this is the clearest but it is missing the stroke & the sweep. The video gives a better idea, but you will have to track it down on Youtube, because yet again I cannot persuade this platform to sensibly link to a video. Still, you can see the whole crew in the picture above.

The guy in the straw hat to the left ended up being the 2nd last person home. In fact, I think he passed us for the only time in the final stretch of the river outside Swan Hill.

Anyway.

At least there was one spectator who didn't have family members in the race.