The Annual Brunswick Canoe Marathon was held on Sunday 17 June, 2018. It was ably hosted by Woody Vidgen and the crew at Byron Surf Living Club.
As this year’s race was not part of the marathon series there were fewer attending. In all 38 paddlers entered. These were the true believers of the former Northern Marathon Series who just love this race and love the beautiful Brunswick River.
The start was very rough with wind waves peaking as they encountered the incoming tidal flow from the start line till the Highway Bridge. Once past the bridge the waves evened out and it was back to paddling the calm river we love. After the turning buoys, an incoming tide made harder paddling on the return journey . However by this stage there were mostly no difficult waves.
There were 6 paddlers form Far North Coast Canoe Club. Andrew Gordon and Stuart Thomson with a time of 1:04:50 finished first by a long way in the 15 kilometer event. Well done! In the 10 kilometer event Joshua Lee (0:53:28) and Phillip Makings (0:55:16) came first and second. Bruce Taylor, Barbara Davies and Colin Cussel also fin
ished the 10 k course. Clayton Kesting thought better of the rough start and withdrew.
At the presentation Bruce Taylor won the raffle prize of a blow up stand up paddle board. We hope to see Bruce out there on the Wilsons River doing some cross training on his SUP.
