Hiding Out

Doug and I have been opting out of Christmas, opting out of most commercial celebrations, for about as long as we have known each other. In earlier years, we would be skiing. Sometimes, just a day trip in the local backcountry, other years, we would ski into a small mountain cabin for a couple of days. There has been so many opt out trips over the years that I can't remember them all individually, but I recall that all of them were better than sitting around all day eating junk food and trying to pretend you liked whatever gift you were unlucky enough to receive.

Of course, we opted out this year. I had picked two possible trips, both self-propelled - in the true spirit of opting out - and both using sea kayaks. Of the two, our top choice was to a little known or visited beach camp on the far south coast of NSW. There are few of these places in Australia, a country with a peculiar (at least it seems so to me) penchant for pushing roads into every corner of the country. This particular beach is a mere 2 to 3 kilometres from the nearest road but it might as well be 2,000 or 3,000 kilometres. That short stretch - there are tracks - is enough to prevent most people from visiting. I often wonder, in my more cynical moments, what would happen to human kind if we had to move ourselves, no motors of any kind, a few kilometres to stay alive. How many, particularly from the developed world, would make it?

We had our friend Mike, also a veteran of opting out, with us, and packed our boats on a beach busy with Christmas visitors. As we paddled east and around the first point, we had to watch carefully to avoid getting run over by an inattentive boat operator driving his large cabin cruiser back and forth a few metres off the rocks - and surf zone - so his passengers could fish. "Here's a guy burning $400 in fuel to catch a 7 cm fish" I called to Doug. Luckily, that was the end of our boat encounters for the next two days.

There was a pretty low period swell and not much wind, so, although we had to paddle, and couldn't sail, we were able to potter comfortably along the rocky coastline. I have paddled this stretch of coast a couple of times before but always with a mission and not just idling along.

After an hour or two, we decided to have lunch and landed on one of the semi-sheltered beaches along this stretch of coast. It is a pretty quiet beach as it is not well known to non-locals, but there were a few people about. It was good to do a surf launch and landing before we reached our destination which has a reputation for nasty surf among local kayakers.

Another hour or so, and we had reached our beach. A strong rip was running out right beside a rocky reef and these two things together provided an easy landing onto the small beach tucked between two headlands.

We unpacked our kayaks and carried our gear up onto a grassy bench with banksia trees for shade and, after some post-paddling refreshments, we all went wandering. I took an old track, almost gone but possible to follow if careful, up a hidden valley past a series of waterholes. The bird and animal life was prolific and it was quite a magical place.

When I got back it was time for dinner, which was a necessarily simple affair, but we did have some nice cheeses and Mike had brought home-made biscotti. After dinner, I wandered along the beach in the dusky and moist evening air until the sun had set and I could no longer see my feet. We sat up a bit longer enjoying the evening but, as is almost inevitable, dusk brought biting insects and an incredibly heavy dew.

We had a beautiful sunrise with shards of sunshine spiking through the clouds onto the ocean and, as we were in no hurry, we went for a walk again, this time following a faint track south to a different beach. Launching was a bit more challenging than landing as the swell had come up overnight and the rip was much reduced in strength. Doug and I got off easy as we both got a push out, but Mike had to shuffle himself down and ended up paddling out through a streak of breaking waves.

The best place to land was where we had lunch on the way down, so we stopped there again. I am always torn between the two types of training - one is practicing staying in the boat for a long time (harder than you might imagine as it gets very cramped in a sea kayak) and the other is practicing surf landings and launches. This time, hunger won out and I opted for the surf practice. This time, we pushed Mike out as we owed him.

The last stretch back to the beach we launched from the boat felt slow and heavy and I was hot. The promised south wind had not eventuated, and this section of coast always seems to have a fair southerly current. I had to remind myself that endurance sports are called endurance sports for a reason. Sometimes you just have to endure.