Today a friend and I did a paddle starting from the Studley Park Boathouse on the Yarra river here in Melbourne...It was a beautiful sunny Winter's day.



The Yarra is famous for being known as the river that flows upsidedown because of its brown color.



Before we could head off the local geese came down to check us out.



It was so funny when they wanted to put on a show for us and they got in a circle and all squaked and quacked and did whatever geese do.

They were very loud.



The boathouse is a popular sunday picnic area and you can hire a rowboat if you like.



We headed off on the glassy smooth water.



There are a few footbridges that cross the river conecting one picnic area to another.



We saw this group of housewives paddle past.



We came across these two black swans.





They were a bit frighten of us and would zoom off as we got close..but as we came around the next bend..there they were again.



We were looking for a place to stop and have a cool drink and found this low laying branch that was big enought to sit on...I was expecting a loud snap sound.



We saw this Dad taking his young daughter for a row in the little hire rowboats.



The housewives zoomed past again.



We were eating shorbread biscuits and I suddenly noticed this very odd bird sitting right beside me only inches away...and hoping for some crumbs.



We spent the next few minutes feeding the bird and trying to get it to hop up onto the boards.



We soon headed off down stream.



We then came across this sign.



I thought..Yeah right..falls on the Yarra..Ha...I've never seen that...but we soon heard the sound of falling water.





I got close enough to see over the edge and realize that we can't go much further down stream.



Next time we'll carry our boards down past that section and see for far we can make it..before there's more falls...So we headed back.

Once we got back to the boathouse we had a friend waiting for us.

DJ

Thanks again for the pics DJ - another great winter day today.

That would be a good paddle - Studley Park to the city - JD. I'd be in it. I guess all we would have to do is round up some housewives to to bring us back.

always quality DJ

looking forward to you next exciting adventures

same DJ time

same DJ channel

..lol..

classic DJ

Just stirring about the housewives DJ!
Ian, no - in Aus all the rivers are public domain, with a very few exceptional circumstances. The river waters, and I think up to 10 metres up the bank on each side, is crown land, for use by all. This means that you can, for instance, wade up a river and fish, (or paddle) even though the river may cut through someone's private property.
I was really crapped off when I was in Scotland in 2006, and found out that most of the rivers are private property, and you have to pay a small fortune to the landowner to access it for leisure activities.
One of the lucky things we enjoy here in Aus.