, soWe upped anchor at 0800 and headed to Maclean the next stop. Anchored up by 0930 we treated ourselves to a cooked breakfast before heading ashore.



Kathy took of for the Op shop which I understood to be up the road a bit, while I sorted out some water in the dinghy then had to re arrange the dinghys on the dock as 5 Whitby Cruiser power boats turned up all wanting to also get on the dock.



The 4 rafted up on the dock as they had no dinghy to row ashore from anchor, while the 5th anchored off in the background. You think he would have wondered why the 20 big yachts had all chosen to anchor on the other side of the river and cross over to the dock by dinghy.

Off I go in search of Kathy along the river bank, fundamental mistake right there, she was only 50 meters from the dinghy dock on the other side of the road. I realized my mistake by the time I got to the Farewell and thanks for visiting Maclean sign and still had seen neither Kathy or an Op Shop. I can not even claim I was conned into this walk, my fault I will put my hand up. Me finally getting back to where I started from.



In town we caught up with Jen and Cpt Morgan who happened to be visiting her daughter which was good as we had not seen each other for over a year.





Well back to the dinghy dock after lunch the fellow who anchored off in the motor cruiser now knew why the area in which he dropped his anchor is notorious for swallowing anchors, due to a boulder strewn bottom in the river. During the next hour or so a lot o pulling, tugging and motoring around in circles archived nothing. Meanwhile one of his companions realize that it was going to take a while, so anchored down stream of us. I can only assume he did not see the "Do not anchor" sign because of an underwater power cable. Yep you guessed it, he pulled that up with his anchor which he promptly dropped as quickly as possible and motored off down river.

Needless to say some 20 odd hours later he is still anchored in the same spot, while his friends have gone 20 miles down river. Seems he had just put on a rather expensive Polished Stainless Steel anchor and instead of taking the advice of many and cutting his loses, figuratively and literally and get going. He is still out there trying to retrieve his piece of polished glory.

We dinghyed back past him on our way in for the official welcoming ceremony ashore at 1700.

Maclean being "The Scottish Town" the pre-speech music was very fitting.





Wit the the formalities out of the way we all headed up to the RSL Club for a $12.50 special meal that turned out to be very nice washed down with some $16 Shiraz.





Next stop is Brushgrove.