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The Canning
Race
By Patrick
Irwin
Well; if you can't beat them join them.
So I was riding up front in the stretched Jaffa; the Multi
Multisport kayak, normally paddled by two sinister guys in
straw hats.
Greg had other commitments, like work, so with Powerful Paul
Hannigan, the afterburner, in the back-seat,
we took off in Div 3, with much of the outer field already
a boat length ahead, as we didn't hear 'Go' !
The conditions were great; not too many powerboats churning
up the water, and only a light easterly. I think Paul had
a problem, after a few yards; as the power dropped and he
said "Keep going", while maybe he got his drinks
sorted.
Almost half the division was in front of us already, including
the legendary Terry Bolland away to our left in his DR, a
Carbon Avenger.
By the time we reached the Mt Henry bridge we were following
a string of long boats, and Terry. This didn't seem right,
we'll catch him soon! We knew Terry was aiming for the 55+
DR record, as was John Breed. Alan Moreby was also in front
of us in his long multi-sport.
My main job was to keep up Greg's tradition
of saying funny and/or annoying things to people as we passed
them.
Problem with this was we didn't pass too many at first, so
I never got into my rythym. When we finally did catch someone
I could only manage a grunt.
Except when Jason flipped his ski, and I called out "Hasten
Jason, bail the basin", as we passed. Hope it helped.
The leg to the buoy at the top of Bull Creek seemed very long,
and we had a few Div 2 boats catching us soon after rounding
it. Two fast K2's, to avoid running into a moored boat cut
across the long bow of the Jaffa, and the closest clattered
their paddles on its immaculate polyproylene. Graeme said
some harsh words to me about not giving him space, and I just
could not come up with a come-back; I was so amazed.
Choking back my tears we paddled on,
and at the next point there was another capsize; a young lady
in a K1.
Here the mass of the polypropylene revealed itself; the boat
slowed so much in the shallows I nearly asked Paul if he was
still paddling.
Our game plan was to keep paddling till the end, so we got
going again finally, with Terry and Alan both well ahead of
us we headed North along with some Div 4, 2 and 3 boats. Avoiding
the shallows and further road rage, we got into line and began
to slowly ease through the traffic.At the Rossmoyne and Salter
Point turns we kept wide, then noticed Div 1 boats passing
us as we approached the posts, but at least we had closed
onto Terry and Alan. We then followed Fiasco in his Viper
through the posts; John paddles this section almost daily;
he'd know the best route. Approaching the pipes we finally
passed Alan and Terry, but we struck another very shallow
mud bar, and we could hear Terry grunting away behind in our
wash.
Around the corner we saw dozens of guppies lined up for their
start, and we decided that we'd do the portage, even though
half the crew is over 60, and it's certainly a very long plastic.
This involved an enormous feat of strength; as we had to pick
up and carry the Multi-multi for about thirty metres. We did
it, somehow, and Rosalie promised us a special medal, but
as we staggered along, Super Terry shot passed us looking
like he was off to run the Canning Stock route, rather than
the river.
Choking back my tears, we got back into the Jaffa, which raised
the water level for other competitors, and set-off into a
flotilla of guppies. Terry was ahead, hiding himself cunningly
among all the youngsters, but we ferreted him out and chased
him down. Well we tried. Then we chased him down again, and
we had not gone to far up into the everglades when we hit
more shallows. It's Ok we said, we'll get him coming back
down... Well, we chased, and I think Terry was worried, because
he was paddling like a Ferral Rabbit. With Myxamotosis. His
paddle was a blur. I think Terry paddling hard could induce
epilepsy.
We nearly got him; he caught a jam of guppies as they came
up to some overhanging trees, and he tried to pass them through
the trees on the left, and he was over!! But, no, no, he pushed
himself back up, and kept going; still in front of us. (I
had lunged to save my cap from falling in the water. Ed)
Well; we met lots of fine paddlers coming back downstream;
Josh way out in front, then Kevin White getting dragged along
by his young son, who has a squeakier voice than Greg. And
Darryl wash riding with them. Lots of Div 1 & Div 2 paddlers
now well ahead of us, and Graeme in his K2 coming the other
way clashed with the Epic on our right. I bit my tongue.
Around the bouy at Kent St Weir we turned too soon, had to
correct and lost momentum; bugger; Terry had got away again.The
chase was on again; we'd close on him, and he'd pull some
Ninja snow-blinding trick and "schwwwiii"; he was
twenty metres ahead again. I think he'd paid the Guppies to
block us like the LA T Birds and Ralphie Valadiraes, if you're
old enough to remember Roller Derby. But even after finally
pushing them aside, we still could not catch the old silver
fox.
But, as the Shelley Bridge loomed John Breed in his Avenger
appeared on our right, and slowly passed us.
As Breedy was paddling in Div 2, and he was so close to Terry,
it seems that he gets the inaugural over 55 DR record.
Is there a record for very heavy Multi-multi"sport
double kayak? As Dave Boldy had left his at home, and paddled
a proper K2; we must have claimed it!
The burgers were great, thanks to Paul, Greg, Peter, Rosalie
and all the organisers. Well done to everyone who raced;
Pat Irwin
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My Friend Fred
Died at 62
My last real adventure with Fred was in 1972
In 1972 Fred Green, a friend and I hitch hiked across Europe
and Asia to India and eventually to Australia. We had been
friends for several years. We had shared many good times together
and there were many more to come, although some turned out
being not quite so pleasant. In Europe we worked on a farm
in Austria for several weeks and had a great time. In Germany
we did odd jobs and gardening for friends of a girlfriend
I had met on a previous trip to Europe.
We eventually left the safety of Europe and hitch hiked in
Asia where we were picked up by two English guys, Les and
Andy who drove a BMW car with false papers, which they bought
cheaply in Germany. They were headed for India, where we were
headed, but our ride started interesting and got worse. Through
Europe they said they had siphoned petrol from other cars
along the way because they had no money to buy fuel. We wondered
then what we were getting into but with us helping to pay
for fuel they stopped doing it!
Along the route through eastern Turkey we were continually
checked out by local police, hassled by the local people and
children often stood at the side of the road throwing rocks
at the car. It was quite scary having children bombard the
car as it was impossible to do anything about it and retaliate.
How do you protect yourself from kids in a foreign country?
We were lucky to move through the country without getting
injured.
Our lift continued into Iran where things got a little better,
but our safety and the fact that we didn't know what was going
to happen to us next kept us in suspense. Corrupt custom officials
and quarantine at the Afghanistan border delayed us. For a
moment we thought we were going to be turned back but somehow
we talked our way in. The country was in a little turmoil,
but foreigners were still allowed to travel through it. Once
we were through the border, the local Afghanis people pounced
on us, trying to sell us everything under the sun, even big
knives. To see that many of the locals had knives hidden under
their clothes made us a little wary and uneasy, but we still
wanted to go on, it was one big adventure.
Les drove his BMW car along the remote highway passing through
toll gates every few miles manned by armed Army personnel
. The countryside was bare and uninteresting and with nothing
much to look at I started teaching Fred how to play chess.
We were travelling through a remote area between the towns
of Kandahar and Ghazni. Suddenly Les blew the car horn and
when we looked up an Afghani woman wearing a veil walked from
behind a stationary bus and right into our path. When she
heard the horn, instead of stopping or going back, she started
hurrying and headed straight towards the car. Les braked and
swerved, but before he could get off the road the women just
ran into the side of the car hitting her head on the window
screen. As the window screen shattered Les lost control of
the car and careered down an 8 metre embankment narrowly missing
a deep gulley. The car bumped along the rough ground with
boulders hitting the undercarriage. The thoughts of the car
plunging into the gulley or over-turning entered my head but
seconds later we came to a halt. If she had stopped she would
have been safe.
We jumped out and hurried back to see how the women was. We
were all in shock but Les was more so. A man who stepped off
the same bus removed the old women's veil, but the woman was
dead. She had black rotten teeth, a scarred wrinkled face,
and blood streaming from her mouth and forehead. It wasn't
a pleasant sight.
We didn't really know what to do as we were in the middle
of nowhere and the bus had moved off. A few minutes later
another bus stopped heading towards Ghezni , the nearest town
60 miles away so I jumped on it. The bus had the odd goat
and was full of sacks of vegetables which I had to sit on.
The bus stopped whenever a person stood beside the road and
waved, so it took hours to reach Ghezni. The people stared
at me continually but it wasn't until arriving at Ghazni,
after one of the Afghani men asked me why I killed the women,
that I realised why they were staring so much. If I had known
that the people on board the bus thought I had killed her
I would have felt much more uneasy than I was.
I found the police station and eventually persuaded the police
to drive back to the scene. They were in no hurry and the
ambulance we travelled in was slow and stopped several times
including at toll gates, a church and a house to pray. Finally
after six hours after the accident we arrived back at the
accident site.
Once we arrived at the scene pictures were taken, the ambulance
carried the women and a policeman took no chances in making
sure we didn't run off by riding in the back of Les's car.
We thought we were going to the town of Ghezni , but when
we came to a junction a Jeep came speeding towards us and
an army chief jumped out. He signed something and then he
changed places with the policeman and we diverted off the
main highway and onto a very rough dusty road. It felt serious
and we became suspicious as we didn't know what was going
on and where we were headed. Apparently because the accident
hadn't taken place in the Ghezni region we were being taken
to the village where the women lived and that was seemingly
in the middle of no-where. When we arrived at the small village
the army chief took the car keys and our passports. He knew
we couldn't go far without these, so they allowed us to camp
between the police station and the jail.
The village had no banks, no post office, only a very basic
shop, an oven for baking bread, a police/army station, and
of course the jail. We had no communication with the outside
world and what we saw of the jail, we were pleased not to
be in it. Because it was the village of the women who died
we expected the locals to be hostile to us.
We had hopes of contacting the British Embassy but the old
fashion telephone in the police station didn't work, nor did
we have the number. Communicating with the police was impossible
as they didn't speak English so when they wanted our statement
they were unable to read what we wrote. Eventually they found
out that the local school teacher was able to speak a little
English so we had a frustrating time trying to explain to
him what happened. After a paying a ridiculous fee for him
to translate our statement, we only had a couple of dollars
left and because we had no hope of changing money we didn't
have enough money to buy food apart from a little bread.
Sometime later the chief made Les take him, the schoolteacher
and Andy back to the accident spot.
That night several army members, that didn't look the brightest,
came around and just stared at us eating our meal of bread.
While we were sleeping, someone cut a slit in the clear plastic
temporary wind screen and stole the cigarette lighter not
realising that it didn't work without the car. We were camped
in a tent in the middle of now-where in the same village of
the women that had just died so we didn't feel the safest
but being young and adventurous we didn't really care as much
as we should. The next day the women's husband came and asked
us for money, but we didn't have any.
Eventually our very difficult discussions over the last few
days started to get better. We were very relieved when we
were told that we were getting transferred to the large town
of Ghezni . It was a relief to leave the village, it was too
easy for things to happen here without anyone knowing. The
police station at Ghezni was a lot more civilised than in
the village, well except the toilet being blocked and no way
to flush it. We had to visit the vegetable garden behind the
police station to relieve ourselves in a more hygienic way.
By now our dollar had been spent and it was on a Friday night
when we arrived, it was also a public holiday so the bank
was not open so we had to pawn, rings, St Christopher necklaces,
bracelets for a few days to buy a supply of bread.
The first two nights in Ghezni we had no choice but to sleep
four in the car and it wasn't very pleasant, but the following
night the police chief, who spoke English let us stretch out
and sleep in the police station. The police chief enjoyed
playing cars so he invited us to play with him, but he had
no chance of winning any money, we didn't have any.
We continued pawning our things or whatever we had to buy
bread but the police chief eventually found out and ordered
the bread shop to return our things.
Several days had passed since we arrived at Ghezni and we
still didn't know what was going to happen to us but then
came a surprise announcement. The police chief told us that
Fred and I were free to go, but Andy and Les had to stop to
face the judge. We were unable to help the guys so we left
them with a hand shake and a wish of good luck but were able
to contact the British Embassy in Kabul to let them know what
had happened.
It was a time of considerable unrest in Afghanistan and before
leaving Ghezni we met an American Peace Corp guy who told
us that 12 hitch hikers had recently been killed. They were
invited to take drugs in Afghani homes and when they were
stoned they were killed, robbed and dumped on the side of
the road.
Our hitch hiking days were over as it was too dangerous to
do it anymore so after a few days in Kabul we decided to take
a bus through the notorious Kyber Pass heading towards Pakistan
and limit the risk of death or robbery .
Fred and I continued on through Pakistan and into India who
were at war, so the borders were only open on Thursdays, so
it was chaotic. In India the overcrowded trains (passengers
riding on top of the carriages) presented great problems,
a nightmare for us and we were forced to ride rough with no
seat.
Fred, who by this time was only interested in flying to Australia,
instead of working a passage on a ship from Calcutta, hunted
for a cheap ticket. But our plan backfired and no ticket turned
up from our friendly, helpful travel agent who once lived
in England and was married to an English women. Instead we
spent the next seven weeks in Delhi, camped at a campsite
in the middle on a big roundabout trying every day to get
our money back. Trips to the British Embassy, the police did
little to help. We lived frugally, as we had little money
to buy anything. Eventually the travel agent's brother, who
was chief of South Delhi police station gave us our money
back, but in local currency. The Reserve Bank, however wouldn't
change it to dollars because they said, to live for seven
weeks on little money we must have been changing money on
the black market.
When the banks refused to change our money we had no choice,
but to approach foreigners and change our rupees to dollars
that way, but in doing so we lost a third of its value. Fred
was longing to get home so he took a cheap flight back to
the UK leaving me with $80.00 to get to Thailand, hitch hike
through Thailand and Malaysia and get a boat to Australia
(and that's another story).
Back in England Fred settled down, got married to Beryl and
had a happy life. He was only 62 when cancer changed his life.
Only 8 months after he was diagnosed, he died.
My brother in law also died of cancer
last year.
Happier moments. My wife Jenny and Fred
in 2010 in Fred's back garden.
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