Kanu Kapers Australia offer tours through the Noosa everglades and up the Noosa River in Queensland. Photo / Supplied
Carol Smith overcomes a physical challenge and is seduced by beauty and birdsong.
Our expert guide frowns as she surveys Lake Cootharaba, which we need to kayak across to get to the Noosa Everglades.
"That lake has been still for months, but it's going to be a bit tougher today," says Vivienne Golding, a former Australian slalom white water kayak and canoe champion with 35 years' experience in guiding people on all types of paddling adventures.
Great - I've never been in a kayak and it's challenging before I even get on the water.
Vivienne doesn't want to reveal to the four of us booked on the Kanu Kapers Australia one-day guided tour how far we are paddling today (about 20km) as she doesn't want us to be alarmed.
Too late. My travel itinerary says the kayak safari requires a medium level of fitness, which - reading between the lines - suggests a rather arduous expedition. We meet at 8am at Boreen Pt and are expected to return about 4pm.
Before we drive to Elanda Pt to the canoe and kayak launching area in the Great Sandy National Park, we have to sign a release form which includes absolving Kanu Kapers from any responsibility should we suffer injury or death. Crikey.
Vivienne assures us no one has ever died and concedes the forms, which were drawn up years ago, are a bit scary.
"We'll all be fine," she says, as we load up the kayaks - putting our chilly bin-protected lunch in one kayak slot and our dry bags with cameras, sunscreen, notepads, cellphones and other items we don't want wet in a reasonably watertight rear compartment.
We are preparing four kayaks. Kirsty and Yan, who work at Flashpackers Noosa, and Casper, an adventurous Danish bloke, are joining myself, Vivienne and Sandy, another Kanu Kapers expert. Casper is going in a solo kayak as he is travelling across the lake and up the upper Noosa River with us but then heading off on a self-guided tour with maps, information and equipment Vivienne has given him. This sounds daring, but Vivienne says the self-guided tours - usually between one and three days - are popular. "We've had a number of girls doing it. It's pretty safe and the self-guided ones bump into others up the river."
I assume paddling supremo Vivienne or her sidekick Sandy will be going in a kayak with me as I'm a complete novice. I lose the bet. Vivienne is going in the other solo kayak, Sandy and Kirsty in a double and Yan with me.
As we are instructed on how to paddle together, how to do the "wiggle wiggle" (balance the kayak by using your hips to wiggle it side to side) and use long strokes while rotating our bodies and using our feet at the same time I assess the blond German with me - he looks fit, is at least 15 years younger than me, and fortunately has the job of steering the kayak up front.
Lifejackets and a large spray skirt, which you pull down over your head and then have to stretch over the hole you're sitting in, are fitted and we're off.
I soon find it's not that easy to keep good timing with the person in front as well as concentrate on long strokes when you're a newbie.
After about 30 minutes, the muscles in my upper arms are starting to hurt in earnest and I fear that although my personal trainer son has been working me out for five weeks increasing my fitness, doing full push-ups, bicep curls, tricep dips and burpees - among other tortuous exercises - this may be the most physical challenge I have encountered.
We make a welcome pit stop for a nourishing morning tea of muffins, nuts and fruit at the Kinaba Information Centre, a timber hut full of displays, posters and maps offering useful and interesting details about the Everglades, a tract of low, swampy land characterised by tall grass and branching waterways.
Getting our shaking jelly-like bodies out of the kayaks requires effort. If the kayak had tipped over on the lake I may not have had the energy to pull the tab to bail out. Fortunately, the lake is very shallow, with an average depth of 1.5m, so it would have been difficult to drown.
Walking up the wooden ramps attached to this timber structure mounted on stumps in the water, I get my first glimpse of the variety of wildlife and bird life in this area of Queensland's first Unesco Biosphere, which aims to promote harmony between people and nature through education, conservation and sustainable activities.
A goanna (Australian monitor lizard) is cleverly camouflaging itself on the side of a tree. I stay still and my eyes and ears start to adjust to my woodland surroundings. I soon see another.
They look big to me, but they're only babies. Goannas grow to a whopping 2m long.
We jump back in our kayaks and soon we are on the dark tranquil water of the upper Noosa River, which is also known as the river of mirrors because of the beautiful reflections everywhere. It's easy paddling here and we glide up the river listening to birdsong, weaving our way around fallen trees while admiring the beauty of the everglades, one of only two in the world (the other is in Florida).
We push our kayaks into a bank and Vivienne leaps into the tea-coloured waters for a refreshing swim. A couple of the boys join her.
There are hundreds of species of birds and wildlife in these sub-tropical wetlands. A pretty dragonfly alights on my kayak and stares at me. Its wings are paper thin and transparent looking and I wonder how it flies.
Vivienne is now in my kayak and I am in the front, attempting to steer the beast back up the river.
It provides a good leg workout and a chance to learn a little about Vivienne's life.
After she retired as an elite sportswoman in the 80s she became an instructor on the Tully River in Cairns. But in 1994 she suffered life-threatening injuries after being hit by a truck while cycling in Townsville.
It may have slowed her down for a while, but it didn't stop this competitive, focused woman.
Vivienne went on to study reflexology and other natural healing strategies and then she was back on the water, founding Kanu Kapers which she has been running for 14 years.
As we chat, a clueless-looking couple in a boat with a paddle stick each float down the river towards us. We ask how they found crossing the choppy lake in their odd boat.
"I won't lie to you - it was tough, mate," says the guy, who amazingly still has a sense of humour.
After a delicious lunch at Fig Tree Point and agreement by all that it's been a very special day, we steel ourselves for what is to come - waves that will buffer our kayaks and sting our eyes, and muscles that will burn as we dig deep to make the final push for land.
Vivienne is a believer in self-empowerment and persuades us that we will make it back across the lake, even though the water is now choppier than before.
"You've learned a lot today - just remember long strokes and loosen your grip," she says when we cheekily ask if there is a rescue boat. I've been holding onto the paddle for dear life so I'll probably have a couple of beaut blisters after this crossing.
"We're going to make this crossing if I have to get out and pull the kayaks across the lake myself," she says. She didn't have to, but I have no doubt she could do it.
CHECKLIST
Getting there: Virgin Airlines flies daily from Auckland to Brisbane.
Accommodation: Seahaven Resort, 15 Hastings St, Noosa Heads.
Further information: See Kanu Kapers Australia, 11 Toolara St, Boreen Pt.
The writer travelled courtesy of Tourism Australia and Tourism and Events Queensland.