Posted on November 10, 2009 - by admin

Kayaking down the Withlacoochee River

A few of us decided to take a camping trip down the Withlacoochee River. We had a late start but we were able to launch on Friday at mid-day. We pulled up to a river bank, found a good place to stay and set up camp. The guys were able to start the campfire without using a lighter too.

We each cooked up a campbells soup and then we made some smores. Later on, we saw a light that resembled a flash light. I thought it was a firefly but the other guys said it looked like a flashlight (which is weird because we were in the middle of nowhere). We looked around, didn’t find anything but we did hear some bores rooting around nearby.

After a hard night of sleeping on the ground, got up around 6am because Ben had the fire already started. He was using a little kids sleeping bag and it didn’t keep him warm at all! We used our Campbells soup cans for some instant Starbucks coffee. Leighton had a potato in his coffee…

We packed up the kayaks and launched at 7:30am. Paddled down some narrow and shallow river sections. We had to get out of our kayaks four times to get around some blocked areas. Saw numerous turtles, birds but only 2 gators. Was looking to see one up close in the water but nothing.

We paddled about 13 miles before we finally found a place that we could stay for the night. We trudged through some muck to get to a dock, hoist ourselves 6 feet up and camp in an old grow field. Later we found that we were in someones back yard, so we kept it on the downlow. We tied the kayaks to some thin rope and lifted them to the dock.

After staying the night there, we packed up our kayaks, paddled about a mile and found we were near the finish of our trek. We had breakfast at the local store then headed home. Check out the video!