Two days of paddling against oncoming traffic of the coolest kind.

Over the past two days we have lost count of the number of Mum and baby whales that have made us pause in our paddling, our speed of paddling has dropped off completely because of these amazing creatures. Within half an hour of leaving Cape Palmerston a young whale who I nicknamed “Cheeky Charlie” left mums side and lined up our kayaks, it is an exhilerating feeling looking down through gin clear water and looking eye to eye with a two tonne playful toddler two metres under your immediately very small kayak. It is another feeling all together when a protective Mum follows her toddlers lead and the blue ocean turns black, holding our breath she popped up no more than ten metres in front of us and rested completely unconcerned about us being there. It was one of the moments of this trip that I will be reliving for the rest of my life.
I was right about Taffy island looking amazing from a distance, up close it was a place you could imagine being happily marooned on for a week or two. The fish life around this small island was prolific – not twenty minutes after making the comment ” I am surprised we haven’t seen any sharks, there is so much life here” yep our first three metre shark of the day popped up and had a look at us – Shark Shields successfully deployed he left us. Later in the day we had another Bull shark track my boat and again the Shark Shields did their job. The sharks are just curious to see what we are and pose no real threat – they are magnificent to watch so sleek and powerful yet almost graceful and calm in their movement through the water.

Our campsite in an unnamed bay below Mt Hayden eight kilometres south of the coal port of Hay Point had everything two seasoned campers needed. A flat piece of grass well above the high tide line and a beautiful view. The Hay Point coal facility is absolutely immense, an incredible accomplishment in human design and construction and in such contrast to the remote natural world south of it, we were silent in our water level tour between the pylons. I was captivated and confused in  how to feel about the whirring conveyor belts loaded with coal headed to ships moored at least three kilometres away from the shore. Brutally efficient, the three lines of conveyors were symmetrically artistic, not being an engineer I found it impossible to conceive just how it was built, but built it most certainly was.
Flat top island was our our next target on our paddle to Mackay, the historic lighthouse on the hill gave the island a special feel. Paddling toward the island we came within a few hundred metres of a mother whale teaching her young one how to tail and fin slap the water. Mum would slap the water with her tail and then the very enthusiastic youngster went to town slapping it time after time. When he tired his mum would demonstrate a new technique which again was replicated with great splashing and gusto by the youngster. We watched at a distance of a few hundred metres for at least twenty minutes watching this lesson giving. We assume this must be a self defence method, it certainly kept us at a distance. It was awesome to watch.
We landed in front of the Mackay surf club just south of the Mackay Mariner having paddled a comfortable 30 kilometres for the day. Great friends picked us up from the beach. We are now clean and rested and will spend the next two days carrying out repairs on both kayaks ( yes more repairs ) and reprovisioning for our paddle through the Whitsunday islands. A great week that was full of wonderful moments in a nature lovers playground. DT