The Long Paddle tackles the mighty Murray

By his own admission, Vietnam veteran Robert Kilsby isn’t very good at sitting still.

“I need to have something to sink my teeth into, otherwise I drift along and I don’t handle that well,” he says.

On 1 May, the 69-year-old from Mount Tamborine in South East Queensland, began kayaking the 2,508 kilometres of the Murray River to raise awareness for homeless veterans across Australia.

He says the idea came to him on a visit to his son, who lives in Albury.

“While visiting them about a year ago we visited the Hume Weir and, me being me, not content having nothing to do, thought ‘Hmm, that’s what I should do – paddle down the river’,” he says.

“Being a longtime soldier of 21 years with Special Operations and Intelligence and a Vietnam veteran with the SAS, I’m very used to having a mission. You might say I need one – it is what drives me.

“Still, not everyone that looks at the Hume Weir wants to paddle 2,400 clicks on the river, right?”

NO MAN’S AN ISLAND

Rob’s journey began from the Upper Murray River near the Kosciuszko National Park Area and the trip will take him around 70 days.

While Rob will be the only kayaker paddling the full length of the mighty Murray, he will be joined by his son Sean, who is a police officer in Albury and a 1RAR veteran, Brisbane North District Vice President Matt Hanrahan and Boonah RSL Sub Branch member Brad Grant for stints of about 240 kilometres each along the way.

Sadly, the fifth member of the team, Jim Truscott from Western Australia, passed away suddenly just before the paddle started.

“Our hearts and prayers are with Jim’s family at this time,” Robert says. “As Jim would have wanted, the show must go on. The courage to keep going and complete the mission is truer to Jim than cancelling would be.

“Doing it with my mates and my son is actually part of the reason it is worth doing in a sense, because we’re doing it as a team.

“If you think of the river in a straight line, it is like paddling from Melbourne to just past Cairns, or from Adelaide to just outside of Darwin. I’ve worked out the entire trip is about 800,000 paddle strokes."

PADDLING WITH PURPOSE

Their trek down the world’s third longest navigable river isn’t without a bigger purpose. Rob’s kayaking adventure will be raising awareness and much-needed funds for Warrior Racing’s charity Australian Homeless Veterans.

National research* highlighted the significant issues facing ex-serving men and women in Australia, with around 5,800 Australian veterans considered homeless in a 12-month period.

“It’s a bit of a problem that needs to be sorted. This is about helping others, and this is why organisations like RSL Queensland are so good,” Rob says.

“It is about having activities and means to engage the community and doing something as simple as checking in on your mates and making sure they’re okay.”

Rob is trying to achieve three things by tackling the river trek.

“One is to raise awareness about the plight a lot of veterans find themselves in, whether they’ve been wounded or have mental illnesses, and continue to wave the flag for veterans.

“There are a lot of new veterans in a sense who have served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Timor and all sorts of places, and unlike Vietnam veterans like myself, these guys are only 30 or 40 – we need to keep finding ways to support them.

“Secondly, is to raise funds. Most people are so positive about it when they hear what we’re doing and why we’re doing it that they’re happy to donate a little money.

“While this is about more than money, we would like to raise at least $50,000 so we can help in the initial crisis link in the chain – to get homeless veterans the support they need. To at least give them the first step up.”

Rob says perhaps the most important reason for The Long Paddle is to highlight the power that having a purpose can have on your wellbeing.

“When people are in trouble, mentally or physically, one of the best things to help you heal is to have something to do. To be engaged, to get involved,” he explains.

“I find it’s a fantastic thing to keep you balanced and so in part I’m doing this to sort of wave and say, ‘If people like us can do it, you can do something too, you can have a journey of your own in some way, shape or form’.”

To follow Rob and his team’s journey down the Murray River or to donate, check their Facebook page regularly or @thelongpaddle_murrayriver on Instagram.

* Hilferty, F., Katz, I., Van Hooff, M. & Lawrence-Wood, E. (2019). How many Australian veterans are homeless? Australian Journal of Social Issues, 2021(56), 114–127.