To find a Campsite after
A Hard Day on the Mississippi River
I followed the wide river in a big U turn getting good views of limestone cliffs and being thrown around by the wind waves. At the Golden Eagle ferry crossing two jet skiers stopped to ask me what I was doing and telling me I had guts being out there in the rough conditions. As they left one ski got hooked up onto my rudder and nearly took me with him. Luckily he didn't.
I must admit I was wet and cold and I really needed to find a campsite before I got hypothermia. I paddled off looking for picnic areas to camp, but I only found people’s back yards that were under water.
As the sun was getting lower in the sky and the evening was getting even colder I asked a power boat person if there was a marina
around. He suggested paddling up the Illinois River when I got to the junction, but I didn’t fancy paddling an extra 9 kilometres against the current and have to paddle 9 kilometres back to the Mississippi. I hugged the shore and looked for a place and then spotted some people at a saloon bar at the east end of the small town of Grafton, so I thought I would stop and ask.
I must
have looked like a scarecrow in my wet paddling gear and with black hands created by the dye leaching from my new gloves that I bought in Hannibal. I really looked a mess and I felt a mess.
Shivering, I disembarked at the flooded river’s edge to ask the people underneath the veranda if I could camp there. They turned out to be bikies covered in tatoos and a little drunk. Yes you can
camp here one of them said, the owner is a mate of mine. You’ll be alright here mate. The mozzies are bad though, but you can have some of our repellent, they will keep them away.
I had no fears about being with the bikies, but I did wonder if they were telling the truth. When is a friend a friend? One of the women slurred, “the mozzies are a bit thick love.” "Here let me put
some cream on you", it will keep them away. Before I could answer the woman was putting cream on my neck and face.
All five of them began questioning me simultaneously. They continued talking to me and they seemed to be genuinely interested in my trip. I was trying to be polite and answer all their questions but I really just wanted to strip off my wet clothes and get dry. I was
taken back when they asked me if we had ni--ers in Australia.
‘Do you want a drink love?” “Would you like some food?” I wasn't shy as I was thirty and hungry so I said yes please to both. Minutes later a beer appeared.
As I started to change into dry clothes the
women started chanting, “lets have a look at your bum.” I didn’t want to cause a riot so I changed very discretely!
Then a female cook came down with some left-over food and gave me a kiss and a hug. They were certainly pretty friendly here I thought! Another beer followed, so by the time I had downed it and eaten, I was feeling full and a little tipsy.
When I was all dry and warm I moved upstairs into the bar to ring Kevin, a paddler I had met earlier that day, but I only got his answer phone. As I was having a beer at the bar the cook came over and was chatty and friendly, very friendly. I soon moved back downstairs to find the bikie mob had gone leaving me to quietly sit and look at the lapping water and finish my beer, write my diary and watch a black labrador
dog keep walking into the river.
A little later the owner came down to say hello. Now I felt better about staying, so I erected my tent on the timber planks under the deck and started to relax. Customers were still drinking late into the night, although I was so tired I nodded off to the sound of music.
Monday 13th July 1998
I slept well and didn’t get up until 7.15am.
Like most mornings I needed to go to the toilet quite desperately. I had forgotten the pub didn’t open early so I had to walk to the
supermarket in town and use their toilet and it was a fast walk. You can’t believe how much of a relief it was.
It reminded me of the time when I cycled through New Jersey and I asked the caretaker at a mobile home site if I could camp there. I was desperate to camp, but I didn’t realise that all the mobile homes had their own toilet, so there was no public toilets on site. I was desperate to go but I had to
walk down the road searching for one and I must admit it was touch and go. Luckily I found a toilet just in time. So it’s always nice to be in the bush and be able to dig a hole behind a tree, rather than being in a built up areas where toilets are hard to find.
