To be free on the river. Photo John O'Sullivan.
 

Not far from John's  backyard. Photo John O'Sullivan.
 

It's not only me who enjoys seeing the wildlife. Photo John O'Sullivan.
 
You can find more of his photos here:
https://johnosullivanphotography.smugmug.com/

 

The start of one of the Marathon Championship races in China.

About 30 west Australians and many from other states were competing in China last October in the Masters and the Open World Marathon Championships.

We all had a ball, enjoyed the championships and getting to know how people lived in China.

Although we don't share the same ideals most of us were impressed with what we could see on the surface.

Who would have thought that less than 2 months later the Corona Virus appeared.
  

Theo and Alfred enjoying the river.
 

Alan Moreby and Steve Coffee social distancing yesterday.

Here they come. The start of a long line of Cormorants.
 

They spread a kilometre along the river.
 

The tail-end of the flock pass by.
 

Pelicans having a prune.

The Mississippi River Expedition continued

Part 5

Sunday 5^th July

Morning after July 4^th celebrations.

I woke and realised it was 7.10am a lot later than usual so I must have been tired to sleep through the parties and all the noise. The tent was wet from the dew and the moist sand clung to everything left on the ground including the tent. It‘s unpleasant to pack things away with grit stuck to it, so if I can dry things in the sun before packing, it is certainly a bonus, but it hasn’t happened very often on this trip. When I can’t dry the tent in the morning I’m left with a wet and gritty tent to erect in the evening.  

Many of my noisy neighbours were up and the men were already smoking and drinking beer. What a sight. The women didn’t look very happy with them. Without having breakfast I loaded the kayak and I was away heading across to the city of La Crosse within 30 minutes of getting up.

It was a short paddle to where I pulled up onto a concrete walkway and had breakfast. There were a lot of people around due to a fun run being organised a little later. I fetched some water from a toilet and on my return I was stopped by a reporter who had noticed me come ashore and he asked what I was up to. He was quite excited about my trip so far, but it appears it wasn’t enough to do a story on me at that time despite me having already paddled, cycled and walked roughly 6000kms. He gave me his card and told me to ring him when I had finished my trip, which was 14,500kms of walking, cycling and kayaking. As I was ready to move off I talked to another guy who said he had been an exchange teacher in Byron Bay. I eventually left all the activity of La Crosse at 10.00am.  

A dam and lock.
 

Boaters camp on sandy beaches along the river.

It was back into the country with a jigsaw of islands and channels shooting off the main channel with turtles balancing on logs, great sand beaches and a myriad of boats. I arrived at Genoa Lock when a huge barge was in the lock so I decided to portage as I couldn’t handle sitting in my kayak for 2 hours waiting for it to go through. A man helped me portage which saved me a lot of time and when I reached the far end people were fishing in a polluted back water.

The wind increased making the river rough and even rougher when the power boats came by. I stopped a few kilometres downstream of Victory at a boat ramp which had a shop nearby and bought some buns for lunch. I then felt I shouldn’t have stopped as I wasted another hour. I rang a guy called Noel. He had paddled the Mississippi some years earlier and I had contacted him before the trip. I was just letting him know how I was getting on. He said Florida was ablaze.

It was back into the wind and as I rounded a corner I found the pretty town of Lansing and a special looking bridge, called the Black Hawk Bridge. The bridge is named after Chief Black Hawk of the Sauk tribe.

A few kilometres further the boat traffic died and the wind eased as I criss-crossed from one side of the wide river to the other. As I reached dam and lock 9, I waited only 10 minutes before the gates opened and I slipped inside. Once back on the river it was getting dark and the moon was hidden by the clouds and with the water being so high it was impossible to see any beaches along the way. However I found a commercial camping site with no showers for $8.00, but I decided not to stay, I just moved on hoping to find my own beach, which would cost me nothing.

Black Hawk Bridge.
 

A small community along the banks of the river.

The skies turned black and a big bang exploded across the valley which at first I thought it being a clap of thunder, but it was fireworks in the distance. Now I was paddling in the dark with the skies looking threatening and the river level being so high that any camping spot was probably underwater. It was now a very lonely river with just the dark shadows of the trees being seen.

My search for a camp proved difficult. The skies turned blacker than black and thunder exploded above. Lightning strikes streaked across the dark gloomy sky illuminating my surrounds for just a few moments, but there was no sign of life for miles. The forest around me started to quiver, as wind shifts scattered and rattled the leaves and within those darkened forests I felt a sense of mystery and fear.

I thought I could see sand on the other side of the wide river so I crossed over only to find it was a stone wall that supported the railway line. As the night dragged on a huge white spotlight eased around a corner. I couldn’t figure out what it was, a bulldozer working at night, a train coming around a corner. The light gleamed intensely and kept moving closer. Then the light moved to and fro across the river, towards the trees, the rocks, the railway line and the channel markers. It flashed towards me like a searchlight from a forbidden spacecraft. Was I being sucked into something? Was this the War of the Worlds?  No it turned out being from a towboat pushing a collection of barges searching for the channel.

A rail line runs along side of the cliffs.

It was the first time I had really paddled at night so the spot light surprised me. I kept well away from the barge but I continually searched for a beach among the flooded islands and shoreline. Another bright light came towards me with the beam veering across the river as the driver searched for the channel markers and the corners. It was 10.00pm, it was pitch black, it was calm, it was cool, rain was in the air and it was eerie as my strained eyes searched and searched for a place to land.

A stone wall supporting the railway line gave me a moment of hope of finding a camp until I realized what it was. For the next hour there was nothing and then about 2 miles out from the Marquette Bridge I spotted some grass above a crumbling rock wall which turned out being my saviour. It was a tough climb up the slope especially doing it in the dark but it was even tougher dragging my kayak up which still had a bit of weight in it. However it was well worth the struggle to get to camp on a beautiful flat grassed area at the top, next to a narrow gravel road, a railway line and a wider sealed road. It didn’t matter if I was camped next to a freeway, this was going to be my home for the night.

It was 11.15pm, I was cold, I erected the tent, had a cup of tea, ate cereal for my evening meal and wrote a while as the odd train passed by. What a day. I had paddled 100 kilometres.

Monday 6^th July.

There was a thunderstorm just as I was about to get up so I waited a while. Once I got going I arrived at the community of Marquette in no time and bought some food from the service station and replenished my water supplies from the toilet.

I was only in the kayak for a kilometre before getting out again and visiting a wildlife centre, where the man just kept talking so I hurried my tour. The calm river with lots of islands, channels and a few deserted beaches had me feeling lonely. I came to the lock at Guttenberg which I had to portage and soon after I changed and walked into town to buy some more batteries and something to ease my neck ache. It was a fairly long walk and as I was trying to get over the railway tracks a long train made me wait as it shunted so slowly. I wasn’t able to get batteries but I got some bananas.

Back on the river I knew it was going to be hard for me to do 100 kms today so I put the pace on. I reached the Dubuque lock at 8.25pm and waited only minutes to get inside and only 20 minutes to go through. There was a big build-up of logs at the lock gates and surrounds which came inside the lock and once the gates were open downstream I left with logs and branches chasing me.

The current was swift with the river full of turbulence and it was a little crazy. I kept my eyes open for a campsite and the logs that I had to manoeuvre around. To my right there was a big eddy choc-a-block full of logs. It was amazing. A large log partially submerged suddenly hit me broadside. It started to carry me downstream. I reached across it and found enough stretch in my arm to grab a few paddle strokes and struggle loose and gain an eddy. I saw a deserted campsite which had been flooded, so I crossed over towards it scraping logs and debris as I went. With the Dubuque campsite closed and soggy there was no one there to bother me. It was quite warm and the moon was appearing and disappearing as the clouds moved across the sky. I only made 86kms and was in bed by 12.15am.

Logs and weed gather before a lock gate.

Tuesday 7^th July

The rain was extremely heavy in the night with a thunder and lightning storm putting on a show.  I was about to get up when another storm came through delaying me a little. The thunderstorms must have been the reason for the hot change. The ground was soaked but at least I had a table to put things on and by 8.10am I was ready to leave. All the logs in the eddy had gone, which was surprising. I left the underwater park and headed south on a milky, misty grey morning.

Just before the rail bridge I stopped to take a photo of a barge system coming through the open rail bridge. Two other long barges went through leaving turbulence and wash under the bridge. The railway line on the east end of the bridge headed straight into a tunnel and then curved around underground and came out about 400 metres to the south.

A Casino boat motored down-river and stopped in the middle. Can you believe people were gambling so early in the morning. I left the city remembering the time I drove over the city bridge at night after renting a car in Minneapolis and driving back to New York to pick up my kayak via Dubuque and several other cities.

I was soon passing anchored barges and making good progress heading for Bellevue and dam number 12 where lots of logs were blocking the lock doors. I hit the lock at the right time as I only had a few minutes to wait and I was soon through stopping below the lock to park up and go into town to find some batteries. The hardware store didn’t have any, but I bought an ‘all round white light’ so I could paddle legally at night. It was then to a chemist and a boat shop before collecting water and returning to the kayak with a coke to keep me awake and some lunch, a hot cheese and hamburger roll. Having spent 2 hours shopping I was happy to get back on the water. The sky was grey but somehow I still managed to keep nodding off despite all the singing I did.

The Dubuque rail bridge opens to allow barges through.
 

My 'All Round White Light' fixed on for night paddling.

The sun was going down as I arrived at a lock at 8.20pm where fishermen were casting their lines. I virtually paddled straight into the lock and was through in no time paddling on very calm water on the downstream side, no logs, no boats and little current.
I started to look for a campsite but after 2kms I spotted a tall rotunda surrounded by the high water level which I knew would make a perfect heaven from unwanted town folk. It was a great campsite so I stopped and made camp on it. I was in a city of Clinton but no one could get to me. I pulled up to the steps and carried my gear up to deck level where I erected my tent. It was a great lookout with a nice breeze to keep the mosquitoes away, a patchy sky and a full moon. I was in heaven. It was my grandest campsite yet. I started singing ‘Suzanne Takes You Down To The River’ by Leon Cohen, one of my favourite paddling songs.
Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by, you can spend the night forever
And you know that she's half-crazy but that's why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her that you have no love to give her
Then he gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer that you've always been her lover..........................

I felt secure on this tall structure. I took the opportunity to wash my clothes in my small bowl and hang them to dry. Several barges passed by with their powerful motors almost silent, their bright spotlights searching the river and looking like an alien ship coming down the river.

I'm home. What a great campsite.
 

Under the shelter. No wet sand just clean boards.