Life Is A Process

Self-belaying yourself on a skinny rope up a wet slippery slab in light drizzle while your feet inexorably slide down the slab really is an exercise in trusting the process. As long as all your systems are correctly set up, you should make it - I did.

Staying in the realm of process, yesterday, in one of my weird and inexplicable just head out the door moments, I paddled 28 kilometres before breakfast. Like some of my runs, I didn't mean to do 28 kilometres. One could even argue I had no need to do 28 kilometres as I had knocked over 70 kilometres in the previous three days, but, I was out paddling and I got that "I'll just go take a look at that, and that, and that, and that and that and that..." and before I knew it I had paddled 28 kilometres. All the way I worked on my forward stroke, which, if the process is correct, should result in my base paddle pace improving.

In case you are wondering, there was a Sunday paddle. A couple more Sundays and I will hit the milestone of a year of Sunday paddles. We were a party of five and went out around the Tollgate Islands, north to Judges Beach and then got a cracking downwinder back to our home bay with a good northeasterly blowing. So, the Sunday paddles continue regularly every Sunday, people turn up, we have a good time, so that is another process that seems to be working.

All I Want For Christmas Is Nothing

 A cluster of people have gathered around my kayak as Doug and I drink tea on the beach, half way through our "opt out" paddle. As I am preparing to launch they have lots of questions, the kind of questions that seem a bit silly if you are a sea kayaker, but make perfect sense if you are the average Australian who rarely travels by anything other than an automobile and lives an almost exclusively urban life.

"Do you have a support vehicle following you?" No. "How will you sleep?" Lying down. "What will you sleep on?" A mat. "What will you sleep in?" A tent. "Have you seen any sharks?" Not today. "What will you eat?" We have food packed, and on it goes. Finally, the last question from a comfortably round lady "But what about your Christmas dinner?"

And therein lies the nub, we are opting out. But, how do you explain opting out to the average Westerner whose life has become a round-robin stimulus response cycle which is hyped into overdrive at this time of year. Not only has culture decreed that we must buy gifts galore - a miserly 1% of which remain in use 6 months after Christmas - but the average person will consume a whopping 5,000 to 6,000 calories on Christmas Day alone, and this is in a nation where the diseases of civilisation are a bigger threat than any virus.

Normally, I talk around these things, but, perhaps as I grow older I grow more cynical, less comfortable watching us destroy the planet and ourselves for the fleeting bliss of a squirt of hormones that make us feel good for a very brief period of time before we inevitably begin searching for the next hormonal release.

So I say "We are opting out. We spend Christmas doing something meaningful and challenging." Round lady looks distinctly uncomfortable, as do the rest of the crowd and quickly they melt off back, I presume, to lounge seats, snacks, and eskys of beer.

We push out to sea. It has been a modestly challenging paddle thus far. Quite a large swell is running and the sea is lumpy and spiky with waves breaking every which way. We have kept well off-shore, avoiding bommies and reefs, pushed along by a light tail wind, but wet and splashed by spray and breaking waves.

Another couple of hours and then we head in towards shore, looking for a rocky little bay that despite facing southeast and the predominant swell, provides a sheltered landing if you can duck in behind a breaking reef.

I am a little to close coming in and a wave breaks and washes over my deck, "Look out" I call to Doug as I sprint off to one side. But we weave in safely and are soon landing on a pebbly beach and whisking the kayaks up away from the waves.

It is a beautiful spot to spend Christmas Day. A narrow bay looking out onto the ocean with basalt rock platforms to south and north, while to the west is native forest, palms, ferns and a pocket of rain forest by a fresh water creek. I find a large goanna lying drowsily on a big rock by the stream and the air thrums with the sound of cicadas.

We find a grassy campsite and set up camp, brew tea, eat a late lunch, walk along the rocks on either side of camp, eat dinner sitting on beach rocks watching the waves breaking on the reef, and, on a last walk before dark, I watch the clouds swirl around the islands to the south and the cormorants fly high into the gum trees to roost.

There is gentle rain overnight and we sleep soundly, the only noise a strange call, almost human of a bird around camp and the waves a light susurration on the beach.

Next morning, the sea has quieted. Still lumpy but less sharp and the swell has dropped by half. We drink big mugs of black coffee as the sun dances in a stream of light across the ocean and showers sweep by at sea.

Pushing off, we paddle out past the reef, onto the open sea and are soon heading south, towards home. Still rocking in lumpy conditions but the sea less sharp today, the colliding swells smoother. We cover 20 kilometres before we land on a steep beach in a dumping swell to drink tea and stretch our legs and backs before the final half dozen kilometres home.

The promised north wind blows up, we put up our sails and turn downwind, running with the rolling swells and surfing into the beach. We land, load the kayaks onto home-made wood trolleys made with golf cart wheels scrounged from the annual clean up week, and walk home pulling our kayaks behind us.

It was the best of times, a Christmas of pure and untainted joy.

The Lessons Of 2020

Everyone should have a "long run" day, or, if running isn't your thing, have a "long walk" day. Something about spending a few hours running trails out in the bush is conducive not only to aerobic conditioning, but, perhaps more importantly, to clarity of thought.

Maybe Pollwombra was on my mind, after all, I rated it "best trail run" of 2020. So, I decided to see if I could run from Maulbrooks (near Mogo) to Pollwombra on single track. It is not that far, only 5 kilometres in a straight line, but much further as the winding single track flows.

As usual, I got side-tracked running along forgotten and overgrown tracks, finding old gold mines, bushwacking to granite crags, crossing streams, and scrambling up boulders. I did not make it Pollwombra, but I did see a whole lot of new things, and I had time to reflect on 2020 and all the things this unpredictable year has brought. Here is my top ten.

1. Realise that the modern world is designed to make you fat, sick, unhealthy and unhappy. Junk food, junk advice, junk media, junk consumables, all give us a brief spurt of dopamine, just enough to bring us back for more and more and more and...
2. Thriving in the modern world requires a generous dollop of contrarianism, and a willingness to swim upstream against extraordinarily strong social influences.
3. Unless you really need social media for your business - and I have questions about a business run solely on social media - you will be better off without it. If you want to know what your friends are doing use that mini-computer you carry everywhere to actually make a telephone call.
4. Take up a skill sport like rock climbing, mountain biking or sea kayaking. Humans thrive on mental and physical challenges.
5. Age is not an excuse, neither are most other things you are using as excuses.
6. Do not quit.
7. Find joy in the little things.
8. To paraphrase Alex Lowe ("The best climber is the one having the most fun."), the happiest person is the one who wants nothing.
9. Behave like an adult, eat your vegetables and skip dessert, do the work you need to do to thrive not because it is easy, but because it is right.
10. Motivate yourself.

2020: The Year Of Adventuring Locally

Sunday paddle day and the last paddle of the year before Christmas Day. With the recent Covid clusters springing up in NSW, there was, of course, a lot of talk about Covid, but many of us were also remembering our first Sunday paddle back in January when our coastal communities were smothered under a pall of smoke and the bushfires were lapping at the edges of towns.

The Perks of Sea Kayaking:  

Inaccessible Beaches Become Accessible

By the time the bushfires were finally extinguished almost all the National Parks and state forests along the east coast of Australia were closed due to fire damage¹. Following, literally, hot on the heels of the bushfires was Covid and the travel bans and lock-downs. For those of us who live to roam the wild lands, 2020 was the year of adventuring locally. Here is a non-comprehensive, completely subjective list (with some links) of my best of 2020 local adventures.

Best Multi-Day Paddle:

The Cave and Cove Tour. View the video here.

Best Day Paddle

MysteryBay to Montague Island with a circumnavigation of the island.

Best Multi-Day Bushwalk

Ettrema Tops.

Best Day Bushwalk:

Mount Talaterang.

Best Combination Paddle and Bushwalk

My home bay to the Clyde River, Buckenbowra River and walk up Sugarloaf Mountain.

Best Trail Run

Single tracks around and over Mount Pollwombra.

Best Mountain Bike

Mt Stromlo trails in the ACT.

Best Rock Climbing

Our local crag.

Best New Take On An Old Idea

Full Moon paddle on the Moruya River.

1A full year later many national parks and some state forests are still closed.

Never Quit

Today was Sunday paddle day. Numbers have crashed precipitously in the last couple of months, which is a bit ironic as it is now summer and great paddling weather. However, so far at least, I have avoided being the only person on the Sunday paddle. Just three of us today and Mike, at 77 years young, was feeling his age after a busy week doing way too much manual labour. We had an easy paddle out to the Tollgate Islands where we lapped around the islands before an equally lazy paddle back. Mike intends to keep paddling at least until he is 80 and I sure hope he does.

The sky was louring with dark clouds and I would have welcomed some rain but we only got a sprinkle. I knocked out a bunch of rolls at the Tollgate Islands to make practising rolling a bit more realistic than rolling on a sheltered beach on a sunny day. It's a strange sensation rolling out on the deep blue sea, suddenly it all feels a bit more real than a couple of hundred metres off the beach where if all goes wrong you can at least do the swim of shame. Similar to walking a knife edge ridge over a sheer drop in the mountains. Something that is easy two metres off the ground suddenly feels truly committing.

It is so easy in the modern world with so many distractions and anti-social media trying to convince us that we are never enough or never have enough to lose track of what is really important in life. Some people, I guess, have never taken the time to work out what is truly important to them moving straight from high school or university into a never-ending sprint to amass more money, more enviable possessions, a bigger house, a flashier car. Even the people chasing travel seem to be ensnared in a web of images trying to get the best photo that garners the most likes.

Doug and I, however, are quite clear. We want a life full of memories of adventures in the wild: big adventures, small adventures, paddling, skiing, climbing, bush-walking, all the grand adventures months in the planning as well as the Sunday paddles with friends, or the day out clipping bolts at our local sport crag, this is the stuff of life.

So here we are, living in our house for more than two years and we still have not hung our pictures on the wall, and that does not really matter because we have had another two years of adventures. The pictures can wait, the adventures cannot.

Getting old is mandatory, keeping on adventuring is optional. I know what I am choosing.

Body Positive

 A couple of days ago the ABC ran a story about a woman whose business model is, at least as far as I can tell, taking pictures of mostly unclothed women and posting them on Instagram. What separates Brandon's pictures from soft porn is, apparently, that the images show "body hair and stretch-marks." In other words, they are not the usual soft porn abundant on Instagram which depict whatever the current ideal of female beauty, according to "society" is - side note, seems to be enormous butts these days so there is hope for some!

Skill sports have a way of focusing the mind

This business apparently promotes "body positivity." Now, I have nothing bad to say about anyone that wants to rebel against whatever the current ideal of female beauty is. Let's face it, females have been f**ked over for centuries with barbaric practices designed to appeal to some masculine ideal of the perfect woman, from foot-binding to genital mutilation. And, seemingly, no matter how "civilised" society becomes there is always one more thing that can be done to "correct" the female body.

Betsy, carrying a huge pack over big mountains 

Here is my take on body positivity. Disengage from the entire media - social and otherwise - circus. Take up a sport, preferably a skill sport. Get outside and use your body as nature intended. Climb rocks, run trails, swim in the ocean, surf, ski, camp outside in the wilderness, get smelly and dirty, and experience real life. The fact that you have a few stretch marks, cellulite, body hair or who the fuck cares will fill you with supreme indifference because you have a body that is strong, fit and can take you places under your own power.

Long Run

I just got back from 25 kilometres on my local single track. I was not actually intending to go that far; my training plan for today was "long run" with no specification of how far I would or should go, simply "long run." After 25 kilometres and over 700 metres of elevation gain, I think I can check "long run" off the to do list for today.

Strangely enough, that is actually my longest "long run" to date. Sometimes it is good to not think too carefully about what you plan to do. That way you limit the mental baggage you carry with you. Leave behind all the negative or, if not out right negative, at least ambivalent thoughts that can be a heavy burden when you have a long distance to travel. Once you are out there, the process is as simple as just moving forward, one footfall at a time.

Speaking of moving forward, we paddled on Sunday, but only a small crew. We paddled out of Congo Creek to the ocean, which was kind of fun as I have not done that before. I have launched and landed a few times at Congo, but in recent years the creek has been blocked by a big sandbar so the only way to paddle up the creek was to land and carry your boat over. Currently, you can paddle about 3 km up the creek as well, although this involves some sliding over logs.

Skill Sport Days

The last couple of days have been skill sport days. The general population has become so sedentary and fearful that I am not sure people even know what a skill sport is any more.

Although I like trail running, I prefer skill sports. They are mentally as well as physically challenging.

Today was climbing, yesterday was kayaking. Here is a short video of us doing some surfing in our kayaks.

No Name Mountain

It seems as if it has been a long time since I went running, lots and lots of walking, but no running for a few weeks. After our aborted paddle on Sunday, I felt the need for some bush time or forest bathing as Eastern traditions call it, and headed out to ascend "No Name" Mountain. No Name Mountain is near Bolaro Mountain, which I had spent a few pleasant hours on some months ago.  

Of course, there is a road. There is a road everywhere. Mostly I dislike road running but some of these forest fire trails are old enough that they have become more like trails than roads and this was one such fire trail. Ascending gradually to a saddle with Bolaro Mountain, crossing a few small creeks along the way, and mostly shadowed by eucalpytus forest.

Since the fires last year the forest has opened up and there are views of the surrounding forests and hills, even all the way out to the Tollgate Islands on the coast. Lots of boulders and slabs along the way, some tree ferns, some small creeks running over granite stream beds. The wild and deafening shrill of cicadas and a few cackling Kookaburras.

It was uphill all the way, which meant it was a fast walk for me, not a run, but coming back, I was surprised how quickly I got back to the car. I am always a little bit shocked that I can still run even after a week or three off. That is the benefit of consistency and persistence.

The older I get, the more joy I take in the simplest athletic movements in life and the more I see the wisdom of Will Gadd's dictum which is to do something physical every day.