The testing

It's Saturday which is the day of the first practise run  so we went to Kanoe People to launch in our rented clipper.  We were hanging around for a while hoping that someone else would put on but no one seemed ready to.  There are only so many hours in the day (particularly when sunset is at midnight) and so we decided we would be first on.  It was the first time in  the boat and there was a decent current so we were not sure how she would handle over the eddy line.

We should not have worried.  We were soon over the eddy line, turning nicely and charging down the river past the buildings of central Whitehorse.

We were soon seeing the partly ogrn cb's which are described in our maps (ask for a copy of the O'Rourke maps if a translation is needed).

The sun shone on as we sped down the river covering the first 4 miles in 20 minutes!

We took some time out of paddling to get close to this juvenile bald eagle (sitting on the branch) and its mother which flew off as we approached.

On we paddled with me commenting on how gorgeous the river was and how great the boat was.

The take out at Burma Road was easily spotted from the directions we had been given and the flag that had been put up.  We covered 30km in 2 hours and 40 minutes.  This is pretty much the same as our race timings so we are happy with this as we took it easy and were tourists.

So this is the road we get to travel on Wednesday on to Policeman's point and round to lake Laberge,

We now have the boat in the back garden of the Beez Kneez and tomorrow is packing practice - life in the fast lane here.

 We spent the remainder of the day shopping for clarityn for Sarah's mozzie bites and a cheap emergency tent to go in the boat.  After a long hard day we rewarded ourselves with a trip to the Mexican restaurant.  No points for guessing what Sarah was drinking.