At 91, Kenny's kayaking quest for kids mightier than the Murray

That's a 2500-kilometre journey or, as Kenny said: "2400-something kilometres raising money for a cause close to his heart".

But it's taken a while. He started back in 2019 but rough conditions on Lake Alexandrina, then Covid, cut his first attempt short.

"By the time I got to Lake Alexandrina, I was exhausted and couldn't go on," he said.

"I rested for a couple of weeks thinking I'd go back but then Covid came along."

On April 21, Kenny, of Modbury Heights, dipped the kayak back into the river for the final leg of his paddle from Wellington to the Murray mouth.

"I promised myself all the way down through bushfires and floods, pulling my kayak over shallows, that I'll dip the kayak in the Southern Ocean and I honoured that promise," he said.

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Welsh-born Kenny started in October 2019 at Bringenbrong in NSW, kayaking for 94 days to reach the Murray mouth.

It was a life-affirming experience.

"What I liked about it, and I didn't envisage this, was that there's sort of a contact that's established between you and the river and existentially the people who live by and on the river.

"That contact is there whether you initiate it or not."

He recalls the kindness of strangers on the first leg.

"One particular day I did about 25 kilometres in 40-degree heat. I had my water with me and there was no fear of dehydration, but gee, it was tough.

"In the middle of the afternoon, I just aimed my kayak on to the bank, gave a couple of hard paddles and let it come up on the bank.

"And I just dropped my head in absolute exhaustion. After a couple of minutes, there was a tap on my shoulder, and there was a guy who'd come out, seen me, come out of his house, and brought down an ice cold beer for me.

"And I said, oh, thank you very much indeed, you must be God."

Kenny recalls another time when when two kind souls got into an argument over whose tent was better to give away to the complete stranger.

Kenny arrived in Wellington in February 2020, before forces beyond his control stopped him.

But mission now accomplished, he said he would "absolutely" recommend the journey to other seniors.

"When you put your kayak in and you're paddling downstream, let's face it, you don't even need the paddle.

"Just get out in the middle and kick back and have a snooze, because the current will take you down a lot slower than you ought to want go. But you're not battling any currents at all."

Kenny has a whiteboard with his goals, including the quote: "Live like someone's left the gate open", which has become his life mantra.

"I've had a really difficult time throughout my life being accepted," he said.

"As a child I went to boarding school away from home in Wales to London and I wasn't accepted by the fraternity there because I was small and my father was Jamaican.

"So that, 'Live like someone left the gate open' is just me telling myself to go for it.

"I'm 91 now, I never thought I would be living, never mind kayaking the Murray yet here I am."

He raised money for DEBRA Australia to support children and adults living with epidermolysis bullosa, a rare skin disease that causes the skin to blister and peel at the slightest touch.

The incurable disease affects about 1000 people in Australia, including two of his great-grandchildren.

"There's no government funding for diseases like epidermolysis bullosa because it's so few people," he said.

"They're called butterfly children. Imagine a child that you can't pick up and squeeze and say, 'oh I love you,' because doing so you would break their skin and cause that child harm and pain.

"So I thought that's a good enough cause for me."

A Royal Navy veteran and father of six, Kenny always loved adventure.

"I'm an ex-serviceman from the Korean War," he said. "I have seen two atomic blasts (during the Montebello Islands tests off WA) and I was in the Suez crisis in 1956 in the last naval battle stopped by naval gunfire.

"I've had a depth of experience but there's life in the old dog yet."

Kenny took up kayaking in his 40s after taking Outward Bound courses while working as a probation and parole officer.

"I've always been rather prepared to just jump off into the unknown," he said.

"And when I did the five-day course taking offenders up and just paddling sections of the Murray, the bug bit me really had and I've been kayaking ever since."

So far he has raised $7000, which will help support families living with EB.

"My goal was to raise $5000 to be able to say that this journey has provided services to at least two families and now we've more than done that," he said.