Stanage – the seemingly impossible destination reached!

Mother Nature has taught us a lesson in what she is capable of on our journey to Stanage. We are three days behind our expected arrival and without the help of some generous wonderful locals we would still be sitting on a remote beach 10 kilometres short of our destination awaiting a change in the weather. 

If you are thinking of buying a kayak and paddling this section of coast do not do it without being an advanced paddler with every piece of safety equipment known to man. It is stunningly beautiful, is incredibly remote, an absolute joy, and a natural wonder but has been the toughest paddling I have done since running grade 4 and 5 white water rapids in my teens and twenties. Greg think Noosa headland times five and that comes somewhere near the conditions we have been paddling in. I have been incredibly impressed with the stoic determination of my good friend Mr Stone when conditions have been at their toughest – courage is when something scares the hell out of you but you do it anyway, he is the most courageous man I know.

The events of this past week would make a credible chapter in a Wilbur Smith novel, considering the average single digit age of our readership I can share only a few of the moments with you on this blog. 

We have two new four letter words in our vocabulary “wind”,”tide” especially when you put the word “against” in between them. I did not expect to have to teach Marty white water paddling techniques on the ocean especially at five minutes notice – the water moves at up to six knots in some of the channels and we have paddled through small two storey buildings with white roofs on them over the past few days. We have had to eddy hop up channels and have met almost every creature of the deep at close quarters. It has been exhilarating, captivating and exhausting.

We have been careful to paddle in short increments and have had to cut days short many times to stay within safe limits.

We are in Stanage for the next two days I will share more with you all tomorrow, thanks for following. DT