A quick post

This is just to let you know how the canoeing went...We dubbed it the canoe trip from hell, haha. Here we go...

In high spirits we posed on the beach for a photograph, all ready to tackle a river in the middle of the Australian Everglades. We picked our own teams (bad move #1) and set out across the lake. The waves were about 3 ft tall in most areas. Now, my team was the only team with three people in a two man canoe, we also had two water proof barrels with food and sleeping bags in them then we had three one man tents (aka mozzie domes), a backpack and some other items floating around in our canoe. And by floating I do mean floating, we were riding so low every wave ended up in our canoe, we tiped three times before we got to the waves and 2 or 3 more once we got to the peaks. finally we paddled our way right through the meat of the lake waves and all with the power of prayer being the stength in my arms and the balance in our canoe. We arrived at an island on the other side of the lake. Here we refueled after a 20 second break (since we were the last ones there) and headed back out. This time however we took a canoe with seats on the bottom of the boat, harder to paddle but better balance. We also shafted our barrels over to someone else.

Off we go to cross the last little stretch of lake till we enter the river canal. We tried to walk most of the way here seeing as it was relatively shallow. We got through and into the canal, and was it ever beautiful, it was calm with trees and tall grass on either side, just gorgeous. Unfortunately at this point I was too scared of tipping to take my camera out. So along we drift the slight current taking us till we get close to where we are supposed to stop and have lunch, or WERE supposed to stop and have lunch because we were about 2 hours late at this pouint. But we arrived at this spot and it turned out to be one, a dead end, and two, not solid land, so we couldn't even make do and have lunch there. We had gone the wrong way, to make a long story short, we back tracked all the way back to that island, this time going INTO the waves and took another route, we got into the right canal and floated upstream. Now my patience were wearing thin, and that showed through the false identity I was trying to were, the one that said everything was fine, haha. So at this point I was irritable, not angry or mad, or upset really, but I didn't say much and was starting to run out of gas. FINALLY we arrive at the campsite at 6pm, its already dark (Australian winter) and we eat and camp. On a side note, we camped at this site, when really we were only about a third of the way to our REAL destination. We never made it to our real destination. 3 caones didn't make it and 3 teams went back and brought them to the site, somehow our three man team made it on its own.

THE NEXT MORNING, the skies were looking grey, the winds were insane, and that was only in the river they were bound to be three times as bad on the lake. Our staff spent a good 30 - 45 minutes in prayer and another short while planning. Finally they decided we were heading out and we made new times, this time it was me and Darcy (a girl on our school). We headed out up the river against the current into the wind, it was slightly challenging in itself. We got to the lake and were we ever in for a ride! We went around the "easy" way which ended up looking too hard, so we cut back and headed straight out into the middle of the lake. We were the first canoe at this point and even after back tracking we hadn't seen another canoe. Off we went in the middle of the lake and stopped at an island before crossing the harbour, which was where the waves doubled in size. I walked the canoe for quite aways, while I was walking I walked literally an inch away from a stingray and followed it along, little did I know (but later found out) that they were deadly poisonous. As we rounded the island we saw the 5 ft waves we were about to canoe through...we looked back at the EASY way we could have taken and decided rather than walking through the shallows all the way around the harbour we would take the HARD but much quicker way, straight across. After probably two hours of paddling INTO 5 ft waves we finally came out on the other side of the harbour, intense pains in my shoulders, calves (from keeping the balance in the boat and walking probably a good few kilometres waist deep water), and the multiple, MULTIPLE blisters on our hands. Here we were, walking our boat, beach in sight, Darcy pulling me for most of it at this point, because she had shoes and after seeing that stingray I was slightly more reluctant to walk the boat. Eventually I took the boat, gave Darcy a break and we could make out the bus on the beach we parked at. We got in and paddled for DEAR life. As we pulled onto the beach we let out a LOUD victory cry, all the campers on the site were looking like we were crazy, but we really couldn't have cared less. We pulled our boat on shore and immediately prayed for the other groups, who as we were praying turned the corner all together, we hadn't seen them the whole time, but there they were.

In short is was the worst two days of my life and the greatest experience of my life. The most physically and emotionally draining, and yet the most rewarding and amazing. War wounds and all we sat down and had lunch. This was when we found out from the camp ground owner that he thought we were insane, he would never have paddled through that, its not canoeing conditions, and that there were sharks, snakes, deadly sting rays, etc...in the water. We also found out we COULD have called a water taxi to get back. But I was content with they way we chose to do things, to perservere and conquer Gods creations, Gods power IN creation, with the strength God himself gave us. Everytime I prayed I had 20 more km of rowing flow out of my arms, even when I thought that I was surely dead, I could NOT paddle anymore, God always has reserves. The end of the story is our prize, the owner said that he was truly astonished that we even CHOSE to paddle through that, nevermind MADE it. So...he gave us Noosa Heads - Australian Everglades BUMPER STICKERS! Personally, I found the internal acheivement more exciting that the bumper stickers!

Off to Stanthorpe, a VERY chilly town on the interior of New South Wales. Peace, Love and Prayers! (sorry about any typos, had to hurry)