Driving to Cookies Beach in Beagle Bay
I have the familiar knot in my stomach that I always get before
climbing and kayaking trips. Inspirational instragrammers are always
banging on about "moving beyond your comfort zone" but I
always wonder if they realize that asking the barista to hold the
soy on your Venti Soy Quadruple Shot Latte does not actually entail
much in the way of consequences should things go wrong. Certainly
nothing near the consequences of a sea kayak trip gone awry or
zippering all your gear on some horrendously run-out sandbagged
Aussie rock climb. But, when we arrive, although the
horizon is a bit bumpy, there is no wind, and, it looks like our trip
from Cookies Beach to Kioloa should be pretty benign.
Soon, our companions arrive. Paul and
Mark, veterans of way too many audacious sea kayak trips, and John,
whose wife thinks he is flat-water paddling not going out on the
ocean. Kayaks are unloaded, gear is stuffed into hatches, and the
car shuttle plans are firmed up. I head off with the boys to leave
all but one car at the Kioloa while Doug amuses himself by test
paddling all the different kayaks left at Cookies Beach.
On the way back, talk turns, as it
always does, to other kayak trips. Paul began regaling us with
stories of the Chaos paddlers. A splinter group of the NSWSKC who
met every Friday night for a weekend of sea kayaking debauchery
regardless of weather or conditions. Kayaks were routinely smashed
upon the rocks in rugged isolated bays necessitating long walks to
civilisation, boats and bodies were battered in five metre surf
trying to leave beaches in the morning or land at night after 50 km
long paddle days, many unsuspecting fellows had their first and last
sea kayak experience, and, on one occasion, one poor fellow lost his
thumb after a particularly trying battle of surf versus kayak in an
remote and storm swept bay. In true understated Aussie style, all of
these epics were barely worth mentioning and considered "an easy
day out for a lady." I admit, the knot in my stomach grew a
little.
Back at Cookies Beach, Doug had been
fending off various fishermen in power boats returning from early
morning fishing trips who declared the ocean "rough as guts"
and questioned our intelligence in heading off in such small craft.
Such warnings are common-place from power-boaters who seem to
consider any sea condition other than as glassily flat as an indoor
swimming pool cause to stay ashore and we have learnt to ignore them
completely.
I was anxious to get going, not just to
get away from more tales of kayaking terror, but also to get a head
start as I knew I would be at the back all day fighting to keep pace
with the group. It was easy paddling north to Point Upright where
the sandstone cliffs are threatening to become horizontal and the sea
became lumpy after the previous days southerly change.
Just north of Point Upright is
Grasshopper Island, the first of several small islands along this
section of coast. Half the fun of sea kayaking is weaving in and out
of rocks, islets, and islands so Paul, Doug and I paddled through the
narrow gap between the island and the shore, a passage which was not
difficult if you avoided larger sets of waves. Inexplicably, Mark
and Jon were last seen paddling out to sea around Grasshopper Island.
On the north side of Grasshopper
Island, the sea was calm for a short distance until we paddled back
out into the swell and sea. We expected to see Mark and Jon turning
back in to shore but no kayaks were visible. "Should we wait?"
I asked Paul, the most experienced paddler on the trip. In true
Chaos fashion, he replied "F**k no." And, so we paddled
on. Halfway to Pebbly Beach, however, he had a change of heart and
actually seemed quite worried, and headed swiftly back to Grasshopper
Island to look for the missing paddlers. Doug and I followed slowly
behind. I had been quite chuffed that we had taken the shorter
inside route by Grasshopper Island as I thought it would allow me to
keep closer pace with the rest of the group, now my lead was rapidly
disappearing.
We all bobbed about on the lumpy sea
for a while scanning the horizon for the other paddlers, but, in
these sea conditions it would be hard to spot two small kayaks. Paul
raised his paddle vertically above his kayak in an impressive display
of stability I would not have attempted which, apparently, means come
to me, but no-one came. Doug and I rafted up and called Jon on his
mobile phone, an exercise in futility as he is half deaf and cannot
hear his phone ring when it is stowed away in his kayak. We left a
rather odd message "We are north of Grasshopper Island, where
are you?" Paul came back, and, with some difficulty we
extracted his phone from his front hatch, buried beneath mounds of
other gear, and telephone Mark leaving a similar message. I was
feeling vertiginous from staring out to sea over the heaving horizon
looking for kayaks.
Finally, there seemed nothing for it
but to continue on hoping to rendezvous with the missing paddlers in
the little cove we had previously discussed landing in for morning
tea. We rounded Clear Point and paddled straight past the cove that
Jon and Mark would later land in. Despite having a map on my deck,
my sense of scale was way off and I thought we still had an hour or
more to paddle before we reached the series of three small coves
which we thought would provide landing spots. While Paul felt we
were paddling achingly slowly, I thought we were going terrifically
fast.
Paul actually knows this coastline very
well as there used to be regular Easter kayaking trips from Batemans
Bay north to camp in these secluded coves where, even over the busy
holiday periods, kayakers could be certain of solitary camps as there
is no infernal combustion access. We looked in the last of the three
small coves on the way by and landing today would have been
treacherous. No doubt the Chaos paddlers would have loved it, but,
the swell smashing on rocks at the head of the bay looked perilous.
Further north, we looked at landing on
the beach near the O'Hara Islands, but, after hanging off shore for a
short time the large dumping swell turned both Doug and I off this
plan. We were now less than five kilometres from Kioloa so there was
not much pressure to land. At Snapper Point, layered sandstone
cliffs caused rebound and clapotis and we bumped past several
fishermen perched on the sloping rock shelf. I wondered what they
thought of us as we paddled past, bouncing around in the waves with
only centimetres of freeboard between us and the ocean. Even Merry
Beach was not very sheltered from the swell and waves were washing
far up onto the beach.
Rounding O'Hara Head, Paul called me
further off-shore as he thought I had got dangerously close to a
shelving reef which broke frequently. We paddled in past Belowla
Island and pulled onto the beach at Kioloa dismayed to note that Jon
and Mark had not arrived. Mobile phones were pulled out again to try
to re-establish contact and we discovered that Paul had a message
from Mark indicating they were having a rest in a small cove and
would continue north. A couple of text messages went back and forth,
the last "I hope you are enjoying this Chaos paddle."
Doug and I took Paul's Mirage 530 out
for a spin, finding it much lighter and more stable than our boats
although the reversed foot pegs for the rudder were a bit confusing.
The talk turned, as it does, from desperate kayak trips to gear, and,
while Doug and Paul debated paddle length and style, hull design, and
various other intricacies of kayak design, I packed away the kayak
gear. Gear talk always seems to interest men more than women.
Mark and Jon arrived shortly after. It
turns out they had not paddled north of Grasshopper Island but, after
heading out to sea to give the island a wide berth and realising we
were not with them, they had gone back to look for us near Point
Upright, eventually continuing north, landing for morning tea in the
second cove, wondering where we were, getting our message, leaving us
a message, continuing north, and finally arriving. It was not Chaos,
merely confusion.
Looking out to Wasp Head from Cookies Beach
I'm really enjoying your blogs as I am preparing to take the family kayaking to the Whitsundays. I'm having premonitions of Chaos-like events as dh's attitude to paddling in a pod is "youse'll just @#$%^ well have to keep up with me". I also used to live in Pambula, so many of the places you mention are familiar to me. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeletePaula, you will love the Whitsundays. Such a magical place. Make sure you plan a leisurely enough trip that you can do some snorkeling and beach wandering.
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