Three days, 130 kilometres further up the coast.

Sunday morning saw us on the water at Stanage at sunrise, after two days of reprovisioning the boats and making a solid contribution to the economic prosperity of the local shop and pub (thanks Maree, great Pork Roast Saturday night). We set off heading west through Thirtsy Passage with a plan to make a very big day of it. The tide was near the top and we had some assistance down the channel with a small current. Thanks to the advise Tony a local commercial fisherman we headed for Cut Through Creek, there is no way we would have found it ourselves, this took almost 7kilometres off what was to turn out to be an enormous day. 

Both Marty and I were stunned by the channel, it was unlike anything we had seen over the previous five weeks. The complete absence of freshwater means the water is crystal clear and the mangroves just love it. The almost complete absence of fresh water means the crocodile numbers are very low, apparently crocs need to drink fresh water quite regularly.

Cut Through Creek had steep mud banks and mangroves down to the water. No crocs seen and we had a racing outgoing tide pulling us through.
Our second major crossing of the trip followed our 9am exist of Cut Through Creek. These of course are crossings where you cannot see your destination. The photo below shows our view which was what we saw for two hours of paddling to our north west compass beering. This of course is where you want to have confidence in your equipment and the weather forecast – thankfully we had great conditions. Ten hours and 56 kilometres after leaving Stanage we arrived stiff and sore on Flock Pigeon island… It is a stunning little island.

Flock Pigeon Island was a haven for Rainbow Beeaters, Sea Eagles and Brahminy kites, the Black Capped Terns must have been nesting as they kept dive bombing the birds of prey, they must have been exhausted as they did not stop the whole time we were on the island.

Yesterday we set off early from Flock Pigeon, we were a little sad to leave it. We had an outgoing tide and light following winds, we raced up the coast cutting bays by running point to point and at the end of seven hours paddling had covered another 50 kilometres of coast. We were captivated by West Hill Island which for hours on our way north looked like a volcano erupting, the warm air off the ocean kept hitting the island and forming clouds.

The beach at the top of the island gave us an opportunity to stretch our legs, we were there at low tide, at high tide our kayaks would be five metres underwater.

We finished our day on an unnamed beach 2 kilometres north of Notch Point. We are pretty sure we were on another farmers land but did not see anyone. We slept very well. 

Today I type this sitting on a white sand beach on the top of Cape Palmerston. We could not paddle past it, it is another Pancake Creek type beach. We are about to throw out the fishing rods as the bay is teaming with fish. This place is going to be very hard to leave…DT