Glenelg River Adventure

This Easter we decided that a camping adventure was in order and we decided to combine it with one of our other favourite activities, canoeing. We’d heard about the wonders of the Glenelg river (near Nelson) for many years now and so decided to experience it for ourselves. So we went on a 4 day canoe adventure.

The Glenelg indeed proved to be spectacular. Limestone cliffs and lots of birds and unfortunately the odd leech or 2 (eeek!). Both of us went into a twitching frenzy … Jan being the spotter .. and Ira being the identifier. We got 7 new ticks from the trip, Golden Whistler, Little Black Cormorant, Great Cormorant, Musk Duck (these are freaky looking), Grey Shrike Thrush, Buff Banded Rail and Azure Kingfisher.

Inside one of the cliffs was a rather unassuming hole, which leads to a 300m long cavern called Princess Margaret Rose cave. It’s a spectacular cave … but our experience of it was somewhat tarnished by being part of a group of 100 or so poor souls who where squeezed in there and tormented by pair of guides who could easily have left their day jobs to become dominatrixes.

One of the best things about canoe camping is that you get to take heaps more stuff than you can carry in a backpack. Every morning we experienced the bliss of delicious coffee.

Followed by a heart stopping fry-up to power us along the river

Overall though the trip will be remembered as one that let us free our minds of our crazy lives and just appreciate being in a lovely place.