redwinekayaks

Guys we are about to embark on the most anticipated leg of the trip, we have been thinking about and planning for this section for almost a year now and have spent the best part of the last two days getting ready for our morning departure.

As expected the weather is going to give us a bit of curry with tomorrow being no exception – as I sit here in my tent 14 knots of easterly wind is grabbing at the leaves of the trees and singing us a song that we would prefer not to be hearing.

We expect at least one day  of no paddling due to strong winds – this is likely Friday or Saturday this week. Our expected itinerary goes like this.

Night one camp approx 10 kms south of Water Park Point. Night two camp Cape Manifold.  Night three camp at Pearl bay. Night four Reef Point. Night five Leichester island. Night six MacDonald point. Night seven Stanage Bay( water resupply point). Night eight Wild duck island. Night nine – back on the mainland West hill island. Day ten Cape Palmerston National park. Day eleven Armstrong beach ( civilisation) . As stated above we will be adding days on for bad weather especially poorly timed northerlies. We leave tomorrow with over 100 litres of water and lots of food. If you are following us on the new tracker see how close we are to our plan… If the weather is good we will paddle further, conversely we will take more time.

Another reminder we will be unlikely to blog for several days after tomorrow. We will take plenty of photos for you all to see.  
Talk soon. DT

The last two days have been spent paddling from Tannun sands through to the northern tip of Curtis island. The departure from Gladstone harbour was like one of those theme park rides that starts slowly then accelerates away at break neck speed. After waiting for three very large container ships to get out of our way we jumped on a 14 knot southerly wind which saw us essentially surf across the harbour to the channel between Facing island and Curtis island. The eastern side of Curtis island gave us full protection from the southerly winds which meant we had a fairly straight forward paddle up to our first campsite halfway up the island.

The bottom third of Curtis island looks like a set out of a Mad max movie, the trees are tortured and barely holding onto life, it looks like mother nature has taken a great big blow torch and scorched everything to within an inch of its life. It was quite unsettling and with a grey and blustery day I had added Curtis island to the list of places I would not be coming back to . By midday I was forced to change the island from the ” I will not”, to ” I will definantly be coming back “, list. The complete contrast of the enormous sandy bay which became our first nights campground was astounding, it was green, growing and beautiful.

We camped high in the dunes overlooking the bay, by midnight we had realised something was quite different to previous nights. The temperature dropped to 4degrees and completely caught us unprepared. At about 2am I was outside the tent looking for another clothing bag when I was stopped dead in my tracks by the stars, there is no light pollution here, the stars were on full beam, so bright – the darned things kept jumping around though in time with my chattering teeth. We both ended up wearing almost every clothing item we had and still shivered our way through the morning.

Today we were accompanied by Dolphins on our paddle up a stunning coastline dotted with white sand beaches and rocky headlands. Tonight we sleep on a small island having eaten fresh caught Flathead and Brim – this is such a remote place the fish jumped on our line in the last hour before sunset. We share the island with some very cute Banded Dotterils, many waders and by the look of the tracks either a dingo or wild dog.

Almost three weeks of paddling, we are both fit and well – we are sleeping like babies usually by 7.30 at night. We are both very bearded and a lot thinner than we were when we started.

Yesterday we finally worked out why Black Magics day hatch compartment kept filling up with water. It was not the hatch lid at all but the rudder release cable mechanism, it had broken away inside the compartment. A patch up job saw almost no water enter the boat today – I did a little dance of joy as it had been driving me bonkers.

Why the outside of Curtis island? The wind was in our favour, but the main reason was there are Crocodiles in the inside Chanel. No photos today as we have very poor coverage. We will be able to post some tomorrow as we again come close to civilisation. DT

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Hello everyone after such a high profile fail of our tracking device we have managed to obtain a replacement and have it up and running. Please test the link above for me and let me know if it works. You should see a couple of spots in the Bell Park Caravan Park at Emu Heads just south of Yeppoon. The old unit has been turned off and deactivated so the old link will not work anymore.

We have had great support and help from the Emu Park, Yeppon and Rockhampton community. Jon Mitchel (Rhino Trees) a good friend and best tree climber I know lent us his Landcruiser to get into Yeppon and Rockhampton. Nixon Communications gave up their time to help us locate a device from one of their competitors Capricorn Communications, thanks Karen the unit works!. Matt Kerr and Jason from the Livinstone Shire Council helped us with a lift and made us feel very welcome, it was great to meet up with Matt and his hard working team again. Lorna here at the Caravan Park is a generous soul and has bent over backwards to help us. Grant from the Water Police came and spent a couple of hours with us yesterday going over our planned itinerary and gave us outstanding advise on where to camp, areas to avoid, and those spots that we must see in the coming days paddling – he was an absolute champion. There is something very special about these coastal communities, the people are content in their skin, they are happy. I really like this part of the world.

It was my birthday yesterday – yep another year older and ten kilos lighter😀. Fellow campers Harold and Gieslla invited us to dinner and over a couple of bottles of red wine I capped off my day as a unique, fun and excellent day. I missed my beautiful family but thanks to FaceTime we all shared a laugh at the state of my beard.

Today we are planning for the next ten days of paddling – we are about to enter a communications black spot and may be out of contact for 7-10 days. Yep places without cell phone coverage do exist, excellent!.  We are very excited to be heading into the 220kms of uninhabited coastline and have been prepping, repacking, discarding surplus equipment so we can add a lot of water for the next stage of our trip. Thanks to our faulty tracker we have met some expert Mariners who have given freely their knowledge and advise, so we are well prepared. 

This afternoon we will try and give you an anticipated date when we will be back in communication range. Much of today will be spent planning our next seven to ten days considering tides, currents and winds. This we will have written on all of our charts before we go, you may have noticed my scribblings on the maps on the deck of my kayak in previous photos. The only thing we expect will delay us in any way will be Northerly winds, at last check we have some coming for one day next Saturday so that will likely end up being a rest day in a south facing beautiful bay, what a shame – more fishing.

Thanks to all of you who have been following and sending your kind wishes. Talk soon. DT

Today our GPS tracker decided to malfunction by converting from a tracker to an SOS Epirb beacon. It did this without any human intervention and within an hour of the start of our day the Rockhamption RACQ rescue helicopter was hovering over two waving and oblivious sea kayakers. Yes somewhat embarrassed, and very annoyed, that my “waterproof” tracker does not appear to be so!. The guys landed on the northern tip of Curtis island, we met them there, they were great discussed our trip – we have turned off the device and will try and replace it tomorrow in Rockhampton. We made exceptional progress today by island hopping to Emu Park, just below Yeppoon. Rest day tomorrow.DT

This is not what an ocean looks like with 14 knots of southeast wind, that is what we had prepared for paddling from Pancake creek toward Gladstone what we got was glass. An outstanding 42 kms today, we are comfortably nestled into the dunes at Canoe point, Tannun sands.
Some camp sites ago I walked up to a group of campers in my life jacket and spray deck, we had come ashore in a very remote place. The first reaction I got was well funny “you just jump out of a plane mate!”, I filled him in on our aquatic travel and he proceeded to tell me that Gladstone was going to be tough, it is always windy he said, and he gave me a”nice knowing you!” farewell. He was correct in a way, Gladstone harbour has blown us away with its mystical beauty and lack of wind. Several times today we commented on how beautiful and magical it was… It was like paddling through a dream. Riley, Jake, it was so dream like, I expected a Dandelion to fly by on the back of a Microbat at any moment.

We did see a lot a small flying fish, yes they do exist, and do take flight across to surface of the water when we disturb them. I have been trying to get a photo of one but have failed so far, I will keep trying. Tomorrow if the forecast is correct we will be blown all of the way to the eastern side of Curtis island, with what we experienced today who knows what we will get by way of wind. 

Marty is onto his fourth Jack Reacher novel of the trip, his kindle is doing overtime. He is starting to look like Robin Williams in the Good Will Hunting movie, his beard is very distinguished and with his glasses on he is looking very academic. I on the other hand am starting to look like Grisly Adams. DT

True to forecast the winds turned northerly today and bought with them rain and a rough ocean.  We had decided to rest up today and carry out some repairs and maintenance on the kayaks. We also managed some fishing and exploring by foot of the coast line. We are camped where rainforest meets crystal clear ocean, whip vine tangles the tree canopies, Chain fruit (Prickly alexia), Birds nest ferns and Grass trees make the understory just beautiful. I satisfied my inner greenie by hand weeding some lantana and red natal grass which should not be in such a pristine place.

We have company in the camp with a resident bush turkey rustling around looking for unguarded food. We have an unknown marsupial the size of a rat forraging around the camp at night – he is very cute. We were largely unsuccessful in our fishing attempts today only managing to hook a small Potato cod which we returned to the water. The same could not be said for the resident Osprey who flew past several times, each time with a dinner plate sized fish in its talons, I am sure he was laughing at us as he flew by. 200 plus Black shags and 20 Pelicans raced by our fishing spot harassing a large school of fish, I watched as the motor cycle gang of Shags chased the school of fish into a small bay and drove them onto the sand. It was all over in a few short minutes, felt sorry for the fish.

A Dugong popped his head up 10 metres away from the rock I was standing on this afternoon – unlike the Shags and Pelicans he was in no hurry.

Tonight I counted 14 large ships on the horizon waiting to enter the port of Gladstone, over the next few days we will be cutting a path through the shipping lanes to the eastern coast of Curtis island, the weather forecast for the coming week is changeable with many wind direction changes. The tides are now above 3 metres with tide currents running up to two knots. It is going to make the paddling challenging and the planning for this coming week needs to be carefully thought out. We have entered a new stage of the trip – it is going to be hard work at times but fun. Sorry no photos – poor reception.

DT 



 After arriving in the friendliest campground so far on our trip we departed the 1770 campground with a random idea about where we might end up for the day. The paddle to Bustard head was done in oily conditions with almost no wind. A large turtle popped his head up to say hi half way across, he was surprised to see us. Lots of sea birds carried out low level passes, the rounding of the headland was characteristically bumpy, the view that greeted us saw Marty giggle like a small child in a lolly shop. Pancake creek is straight out of a movie set – you know one of those romantic movies with lots of young beautiful people….fortunately for us we have this paradise to ourselves and our bearded, bedraggled selves certainly won’t make movie stars, but we expect them to turn up at any moment.

Pancake creek has a coral reef at its entrance and is teaming with fish, one of which joined us for dinner this evening. Yum.

Bob my boat is still taking on water, we now think I may have a small hole in the hull I will be working on that this evening and tomorrow – loved the glad wrap solution though, and thanks for the mandarins and lemons – so good.

There are so many simple things that you miss on a trip like this, fresh fruit (it is awesome)/ hot water – again awesome, electricity, chairs – especially chairs with a back, when I get home I am going to sit in my favourite chair an will myself to merge with it for a few hours, oh I miss chairs! 

We have poor coverage here so have only been able to post a few photos, have heaps more to come when we get back to civilisation. A huge thanks to all of our new friends at 1770, travel safe guys. DT

The start of today saw us with the most complex launch of the trip. It was complex as we were paddling out of an estuary on an outgoing tide, punching over a bar with metre waves breaking whilst avoiding a large number of trees which were embedded in the estuary – yes my definition of fun. Our 38 km run up the coast was fairly hard work with a good breeze at our backs with a 1.2m ish rolling swell which gave us a serious case of waggly backside, of course this means the back of the kayak keeps being picked up and turned from one side to the other.
We were rewarded with our first jaw dropping landscape in two days when we rounded the headland into 1770. I am surprised Captain Cook actually left this place after discovering it. If I had been him I would have beached the Endeavour and retired. 

We have entered a beautiful area and cannot wait to see what the coming days bring. We are both doing well physically and the remoteness is bring out our inner comedians – everyone should buy a kayak and paddle into 1770. It should be placed top ten on any bucket list. Bring on tomorrow.DT.

Hey guys, what a wonderful way to spend a birthday… We made good progress in some trying seas but found a beautiful camp site, as you can see up over looking the river outlet and the beach stretching in front of us. My greatest disappointment was not being able to spend it with Andrei as it is his 20th birthday too today. 
We are just feasting into fresh flathead entre then lamb fettuccine and pasta.  We won’t be staying up late tonight as we plan a 6am start in the morning to catch the best conditions to to reach 1770 tomorrow. MS

After spending an amazing night in Bagara with Adam, Karen and their awesome kids we set off to Turtle beach to launch. When we arrived a thick sea fog had blanketed the coast, it was a bit spooky and having no idea what the rocky coast was like we left with a careful plan to keep land clearly visible on our left. After an hour the fog lifted and we were treated with a grand rocky coastline which had been created by the “Hummock”‘ an extinct volcano, the regions only hill. In stark contrast to the day before we had marine and bird life everywhere. 
Tonight we sit on an island where people and vehicles cannot access unless they come via the ocean. It is peaceful, very remote and absolute heaven. As we paddle further north we have noticed the absence of litter on the beaches, in Moreton bay we were very disappointed with the volume of waste on and above the high tide line. Here you could just about imagine people don’t litter, it is refreshing.

We are both very tired tonight, we are about to chomp down on some rice and rehydrated dinners then retire to bed. A great day. DT