Kayaking Elliott River Queensland

I decided I’d had enough of the rain while camping and needed a place to dry out, so I headed back to mums in Bundaberg for a few days.

This enabled me to access my kayaks which I miss so much, so I packed my yellow kayak on the car and headed 15mins drive down the coast to a new adventure spot.

I spotted a white sandy beach on the other side of the river, so I paddled 50m across Elliott River to scout out this as a potential swimming location, for when I almost finish kayaking at the end of the day.

As I was getting out of the kayak I managed to break my sunglasses that were in my life jacket pocket for safe keeping. Not a very good start but I though oh well, that’s life and its not going to spoil my day.

I was looking at the build up of clouds in the distance and thought that may however spoil my day. As it turns out they were building up in the distance and blowing away from me.

Time for a quick selfie without my sunnies

I sat back in my kayak and struggled with the summer dry skirt as it gets caught up on my shoulder straps on my life jacket. After a few seconds of contortions I managed to secure the summer half skirt.

This just covers my legs to stop them getting sunburn while allowing airflow in the kayak cockpit, well thats the theory. It becomes a little bit like a sauna and sweat runs down my legs and I’m convinced that there’s bugs crawling down my legs.

This is one of about four sea eagles I spotted on my trip, I managed to get fairly close before it took flight with an impressive wing span it look effortless.

I decided to take one of the side arms of Elliott River, as you often find much more wildlife and the chance of shade. The side arms were a little calmer to paddle but you also lost some of the breeze so this made kayaking much warmer.

More birdlife was spotted but I’ll leave this for the video as they were more impressive in flight.

I soon found myself daydreaming of a different world paddling down the Amazon, on a raft not a kayak. With all the bends in the creek, and the thick undergrowth it reminded me of a movie I was watching the night before. I passed ducks, ibis and startled a few fish that jumped out of the water giving me the evil eye for disturbing them I’m sure.

The water was not as clear further up the creek as the mangroves grow in the muddy banks and this clouds up the water.

I found that I’d come to the end of this creek, so I turned around and headed back the way I came.

About two km down the creek I found a places to stop for lunch and watch the birds as I ate my sandwiches, the cicadas were making and loud buzzing sounds which is quite irritating especially late at night when your trying to get some sleep or filming like I was.

I pushed my kayak into the water once more and struggled with the kayak skirt again. I tried a different approach and almost fell out of the kayak, which wasn’t very smart, not to worry nobody was watching.

Back at the main river, the water was more clear and I managed to paddle over a few stingrays that shot off at great speed, too quick for my camera reflexes.

Anyway the next thing I saw was the strangest thing I’d come across while kayaking, mainly because it was so out of place, Santa on a parachute.

Santa’s Summer Holiday in Queensland

I could see the tide was starting to turn so I paddled for home and my long awaited swim. The water was a nice 27 deg I’m thinking but cooler than the surrounding air temperature. I tried to capture some of the small fish but they were two small for my GoPro to pick up in the slightly cloudy water with all the mangrove mud as the tide was now retreating.

I finally got my swim in warm water of Elliott River

I just wish I had a proper sea kayak as this would open so much more opportunities, and also some more training. The sea was in sight and calling me to buy a larger Sea kayak.

17km kayaking up the Elliott River

Anyway I think that this was a much easier kayak trip that the month before with my mother because I wasn’t battling the high wind on most of the trip, also the birdlife was more abundant, up the smaller creek arms.

My Video of Elliott River