Saturday Is The New Sunday: Tollgate Islands And The Murramurang Coast

In a break with my tradition, I moved the Sunday paddle to Saturday as an east coast low was forecast for the beginning of the last week of July. The forecast was benign with light winds and no rain until late in the day. The swell, however, was a bit more than forecast (forecast under a metre, actual about 1.3 metres) and the period was still over 10 seconds. Nevertheless, we would try the cave tour.

First stop was the Tollgate Islands. It was not a blue cave day, but it was Adrian's first paddle out to the Tollgates, so we pottered around in the rocky bays. Then we sped straight across to North Head, and began paddling slowly up the coast, slipping in behind rocks and through gauntlets when possible.

I was hopeful of getting into the most southerly cave which faces north and has a sheltering reef, but a big bommie at the entrance to the gutter was breaking frequently. Next stop, was a hidden little beach which garners partial shelter from a rock islet to the east. There are two ways to enter and land, one involves threading a line through a series of rock reefs, the other, shorter and quicker, is to barrel through a gutter between rock islet and rocky shoreline.

We arrived during a lull in larger sets and four people paddled in through the rock reefs. Mike and I hung back thinking it would be well to allow space to land as we could see waves surging up onto the beach behind and kayak collisions in these conditions are common. Next minute, Mike and I were back paddling over a large set and the entire access closed out.

After the larger waves passed, neither Mike nor I could see any paddlers, so I paddled north to see if I could see the state of play through the gutter access. A couple of paddlers emerged and reported that everyone was upright and the landing was reasonable, so with adequate spacing between us, we all paddled in. Soon after Mike, who was coming last, landed, a big set closed out the gutter again.

It was a quick lunch with a few big sets coming in. I wanted to, at a minimum, show everyone where the last big cave was, as it is not obvious when paddling past, so we continued north to have a look. Nick, the cave weasel, backed into the entrance but did not go right into the cave due to the more powerful sets coming through. This cave goes back a long way, and opens up into a cavern when you get inside.

That was our furthest northerly point before we paddled back. The rain moved in after dark.