redwinekayaks

Darcy has been boating and fishing in the military area for 30 years – apparently we are the first kayakers he has seen in these waters. Darcy was surprised to see us crossing the 6 knot outgoing passage, it is very appropriately named and became Marty’s first white water kayaking skills training area. The passage was closed to Mariners as the military were letting off 500 pound underwater bombs – one went off just as Marty was tiring crossing the channel, the unexpected blast was all he needed to get his paddling back into fast mode. Darcy was a wealth of information that helped us navigate the coming few days and his dog Tina was a delight.

At first glance from the water these beaches look like sand, when you get on them you find compressed sedimentary rock benches that were formed hundreds of thousands of years ago eroding away and creating magnificicent shell and polished rock landscapes that you just want to run your fingers through. You cannot help but wonder what the world was like when these sedimentary rock layers were formed. It gets your imagination going, I wonder how many of the shellfish that were present at that time are still present today? DT

The generosity of strangers is absolutely amazing. After making the decision to run to land after yet another lashing at the hands of Mother Nature we beached on this beautiful sand beach at 9.30 am between rocky oyster leases. Again no footprints and little evidence of human presence except for the glimpse of a house a few kilometres down the beach. We found a camp site on top of the sand dunes in amongst the trees and set about monitoring the wind to see if it would drop away so we could progress – by 3pm we knew we were going to be staying the night. At about 4pm we saw a small 4×4 head up the beach, we flagged them down on their return run. We met Peter Ward and his 19 year old son Caden. They were somewhat surprised to see me pop out of the dunes to greet them, we were on private property and really were not supposed to be there. We spoke with Peter briefly and explained what we were doing – five minutes later we were drinking our first beer in seven days, ten minutes later we were drinking our second beer in seven days. Caden had had a great day fishing and 30 minutes later he had given us a sack full of black bream for our dinner. Peter is close friends with the owners of the property. What a greeting! Two hours later when we were about to start cooking Cadens fish we heard a vehicle, Peter had bought back Fred the owner of the property and two eskis full of beer, five beers later, lots of great conversation we headed back into the dunes with laughter and wobbly legs and an invitation to breakfast and a shower the next morning. 

The next morning we showered( awesome because we stank), and dined on the best home made rissoles, bacon and eggs in the world. Evoyn and Fred Burns are the wonderful people who treated two castaway trespassers with such generosity it is hard to imagine you could find better people anywhere. 

Due to the ongoing awful weather and only being ten kilometres from Stanage Peter loaded all of our equipment and drove us through to town where we are sitting comfortably in a rented house getting reprovissioned and prepared to head off Sunday morning for another five days of remote paddling. 

We have made firm friends for life and will pass forward the great kindnesses shown to us to others whenever the opportunity arrives. Caden – you rock mate, we cannot thank you enough.DT

Five weeks into this trip I have lost more than ten kilos and what was once quite a comfortable kayak seat is not quite so comfortable anymore. I have rediscovered my rib cage and have almost no fat reserves left. It has been interesting how this loss of fat reserve has impacted on my energy levels. At the beginning of last week I started to hit the wall at various times during the day – it seems my body now needs constant food and without it, it does not want to run at full capacity. We are eating a huge amount, it seems appropriate when you consider we are essentially doing back to back marathons each day on the water. Marty has experienced much the same effect though he started to feel the effects almost five days after I did – I of course have been telling him that that proves he was fatter than me when we started…DT

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

Whilst munching away on the best home made porridge in the world, quietly picking the burrs of Mosman river grass out of our trousers and suffering blurred vision due to the clouds of mozzies we looked up and met our second beautiful mum in two days. 

She quietly walked past our camp with her two chicks as five black cockatoos did a low pass flyby. What a beautiful part of the world….DT

The tracker failed to track us up the coast today because I did not push the right buttons. Sorry guys, one day I will learn to read the instructions – having now read the instructions you will be able to see our progress tomorrow. We are 40 plus kilometres up the coast just above Corio Bay Conservation Reserve. The ocean challenged us today, it was so good to be paddling after the break we really didn’t want to stop so ended up almost ten kilometres further up the coast than planned.

We met a very special mother and young one today at ten metres distance, I know the photos below only give you a glimpse but she was huge and we were in awe of the fact that she deliberately changed her course to come and have a look at us. Moments before her calf had been breaching giving us a great aerial display. 

We have had a fantastic day and sitting here on top of a large sand dune we have some phone and Internet coverage. We don’t expect to have any tomorrow night.