Paddling From Patonga

First up the paddling which was on the Central Coast. I always have to look these things up when Australians use regional names, like the Sunshine Coast, or the Sapphire Coast or the Central Coast and expect you to understand where the f**k they are talking about. Somehow everyone has started to talk like a tourism advertisement as in visit the Central Coast: “a stones throw from Sydney, a million miles from a care in the world.” I don’t know about that. It was a congested drive up and back, there was noisy and polluting piston powered craft everywhere, the cafes were full of jostling people on the downward slide of their last sugar fix and some dude in the campsite had thumping music going all day and half the night. Other than that, I guess it was carefree.

The first day we paddled from Ettalong to Maitland Bay. I had borrowed the “other half’s” waterproof camera but somehow, at the start of the day, I managed to set it on super-macro so everything was blurry. Plus, I realised there was no float or string attached and I instantly became paranoid that I would drop the camera into the briny blue and lose not only a camera but a relationship. The end result being I have no photos at all. There might be some on NSW Sea Kayak Club Facebook page but I don’t have a Facebook account so I couldn’t tell you.

We launched from Ettalong Beach at the narrowest part of Brisbane Waters and I think it was exactly mid-tide as the tidal current was running in surprisingly fast. There was some instruction to “ferry glide” across but, judging by some of the approaches I witnessed, many sea kayakers may not actually understand the concept of the ferry glide; although a ferry glide is about the first thing that whitewater paddlers learn and is a useful skill for sea kayakers.

Once across to the east side of Broken Bay we followed the short sandstone cliffs of Little Box Head and then Box Head. There was a lot of rebound off Box Head and other paddlers told me it is hard to ever get in close although it would be grand if you could. We passed two beaches, Tallow and Putty, neither of which would have been an easy landing this day. The swell, I think, was in the 1.5 metre range but with a greater than 10 second period. It’s been a long time (last summer) since I practised rolling so I did not need any encouragement to stay well away from Maitland Bombora.

Apparently, back in 2008, there was a big “incident” at Maitland Bombora where three out of five kayakers ended up in the water after getting caught in a big wave on the bommie. As is often the case with these incidents, particularly in long standing tribal groups like clubs, the event has permeated group consciousness and become a shared memory even if you were not there on the day.

Maitland Bay is fairly well protected by the reef off Boudi Point and the bombora, so the landing was only difficult in that the swell was quite surgey (not actually a word according to my spell check) on a steep beach and there were 15 kayakers coming into land all trying to tuck into the most sheltered eastern corner. We had a long and social break with lots of laughing. I think everyone is really enjoying being able to socialise again after the mentally damaging lock-downs we’ve all lived through in the last couple of years. Hopefully that incendiary statement is not enough to get this blog banned but anything is possible in the era of “misinformation” (which is the leftie term for “alternative facts”).

After our break, I had a very civilised push/pull out from the men in the group. They tell me this is the way things are done on the Central Coast. I usually avoid any sort of assistance unless I absolutely require it as one really must be pretty self-sufficient to paddle on the open sea, but when in Rome, or on the Central Coast, and I certainly could get used to such treatment although I do not expect it back on the rough and tumble of the south coast.

It was a pleasant paddle back, slower than on the way out as is usual with groups, but I don’t think anyone felt in any kind of rush. The “million miles from a care in the world” was definitely missing when we got back to Ettalong Beach which was packed out with jet skis driven dangerously, ferry traffic, and sundry power boats surging past. The Central Coast is a lot busier than the south coast.

Next day we launched from Patonga Beach opposite the pub/cafe. This was a busy location. I am pretty convinced the reason most Australians leave home is simply to go eat at a cafe or pub somewhere as the place was certainly hopping with cars cruising up and down hoping to park exactly across the road. If you think about it, this explains the shape of 70% of Australians which is under-muscled and over-fat. Don’t get mad, get fit, these are real statistics.

Two of the women on the trip had actually followed my old ‘gramme account which I deleted a couple of years ago when I purged the last of my social media accounts. I feel a healthier person for it. Social media seems to be mostly about comparison (remember that quote about comparison being the thief of joy) and commercialisation. I do not miss it.

We paddled over to Lion Island, which has a small beach but landing is prohibited. Around the north side past some more sandstone cliffs and then south across Broken Bay to Barrenjoey Head. I would like to walk around on Barrenjoey Head, I think there may even be some rock climbing up there. The headland is connected to the mainland only by a narrow isthmus of sand (although there are roads and structures built on the isthmus) which you have to think will wash away one day in a big east coast low. That will be something to see and a delightful reminder that man is impermanent.

There were a few Australian Long Nosed Fur Seals (isn’t Duck Duck Go a wonderful thing) laying about on rocks on the western end of Barrenjoey Head as we crossed over to West Head which is in Ku-ring Gai Chase National Park. We pottered along heading west to a little beach called Hungry Beach for morning tea. From Hungry Beach it was only a couple of kilometres back to Patonga Beach with the group slowing down again.

I had a long drive back to the southern side of Sydney looming over me but I had also spent a lot of time in the last couple of days either sitting in a car or sitting in a kayak, so I put my sneakers on and walked east from the parking lot – still people trying to find parking spots exactly opposite the cafe – to Dark Corner Track (a bit of a weird name for a track uphill through some woods) to Warrah Lookout and Warrah Trig. This is part of the Great North Walk and is one of those absurdities that National Parks appears to find completely normal whereby some tracks are pretty much completely paved and others, like those in the Budawangs, never see a scrap of maintenance and disappear after major bushfires. Lovely views from Warrah Lookout and along the track and on the way back I passed a group of folks at the base of the Dark Corner Track reading bible scripture. Perhaps the track name is in reference to Satan. I don’t know, but that statement also is probably liable to result in some kind of censorship.