Kayaking Austin Bayou |
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Three of us did a exploratory trip on Austin Bayou early in January, 2002. I got to the put-in early in the afternoon on a beautiful day with warm sun and cool winds. I found the bayou with high water from the rains the day before and with a unexpected strong current. We had planned to just do a down and back trip but that no longer looked easy. When Robert and Chris joined me, we decided to run a shuttle down to the next bridge, on CR227. We unloaded the boats and I waited with them while Robert and Chris ran the shuttle. After a few minutes, I got bored and decided to go out and play in my kayak. I found I could travel upstream slowly but fairly easily. I discovered that there were canals leading into the bayou just north of the road and explored the canal for a little ways and then went back upstream a short ways. I turned around to go back and when I got around a bend, I found them already back and loading their boats with gear. We finally got started about 2:00 P. M. We began our trip by investigating a canal on the south side of the road for a short ways. Then we came back out and immediately went into a little pond off the bayou where we found a empty boat house. The bayou runs though Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge and this structure must be part of it. We disturbed two barn owls who flew out and disappeared over the marsh. Robert and Chris had to stop and take off their paddling jackets before we could go on. Then we moved back into the main bayou and started downstream. |
At the Put-in with the bayou in flood |
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Paddling through a marsh |
The current was a joy to paddle in. Most of the
time the wind was quartering at our backs and the current and wind combined
to help us move about 2.4 mph while just floating. We tried to paddle
as fast as we could and sometimes could get the GPS to read 8 mph.
We flew past a varied and textured shoreline with a few live oaks,
some other leafless trees covered with a silvery lichen, huge palmettos,
small shrubs and tall grasses. Sometimes we passed what looked like
prairies but was really marsh with dense grasses. Ocassionally we
passed higher ground where there really was a prairie, sometimes with
cows grazing on it. We saw very few birds due to the high water
but a few Eastern Phoebes kept us company near the beginning of the paddle.
We occasionally spooked one or two ducks. Further downstream we heard sandhill cranes calling but couldn't see them. We also heard geese which seemed to be sitting somewhere in the marsh. We did see two kettles of white pelicans flying high over the marsh and several groups of laughing gulls. We also saw a few great egrets and one great blue heron. We saw a few hawks stooping in the wind and a couple of harriers flying low over the marsh (but we saw many red-tailed hawks, several kestrels, lots of harriers and a few unidentified hawks on the trip to the put-in). This place should contain many more birds when the water is at it's normal level. |
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| About an hour after we started and about 5 miles downstream, we found a little sand bar where we got out and took a rest break. From here we could barely see our take-out bridge. While there the second power boat went by us. I think we saw only three or four boats the whole trip. When we put back in, we paddled several broad curves of the bayou before finding ourselves back in civilization and seeing the first houses of the trip. All too soon we were paddling under the bridge and deciding to paddle a little further downstream. We paddled to an intersection and took the right side, which the map showed to be the old, curving channel. This had a row of pretty stilt houses next to it. It crossed a straight, manmade channel. After this, the land became wild again but the marsh now had the short marsh grass and not much plant variety. We paddled only a short way further before the guys overruled me about going any further and we turned back, this time paddling to the straight channel and going up it for a change of scenery. We paddled as hard as we could, into the current and the wind but the GPS said we were doing 2.5 miles. I was really glad not to have to paddle back up the bayou for the entire trip. |
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Helpful Information:This is a nice trip to do in the fall, winter, and early spring when lots of birds are to be expected. It would be miserably hot in the late spring and summer. Other alternatives
involve putting in and going upstream and coming back or Maps:You
can use The Roads of Texas to locate the put-in and take-out. The |
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Website
by Marilyn B. Kircus.
Last modified on
January 20, 2004
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