We are back paddling out of Bawley Point. Nick wants to paddle up to Crampton Island as, apparently, this is one section of the coast he has never covered. There is talk of “playing” but my read of the weather is that there will be too much swell for that. And there is: a ten second period two metre swell rolling up from the south. There is very little sea, and no wind so it is almost glassy calm, but the big rollers keep us off-shore. We paddled this section on the first day of June with a low swell and there really wasn’t much to play about in. From Crampton Island we lap back down to Brush Island and then back to the beach. 22 kilometres in three hours without breakfast so it’s a pretty good training mission. When I paddle with Nick and Doug now, I have to paddle just a bit above my relaxed pace, and I can only hope that translates into getting a bit consistently faster. There is some truth, although it sounds simplistic, to simply going faster to speed up.
Three days before, we had paddled out of Bawley Point with Rae, going as far south as Snake Bay. It was one of those bumpy, lumpy days and the rebound off O’Hara Head and Snapper Point was making me queasy. Doug and Rae kept calling for me to “paddle closer in,” to which I would reply, “No, I’m good out here.” The swell dropped over the day unlike Sunday when we paddled to Crampton and Brushy Islands and the swell got bigger.
The previous day, I had gone down to Guerilla Bay to walk around the tracks and rock platforms. There are so many hidden footpads and bays around here which you have to find yourself by exploring. Although I have paddled into and out of Guerilla Bay multiple times – it’s a safe landing site – I had never walked the little footpads over the headlands or around the rock platforms. The tide was falling when I started, and the little isthmus of sand out to the rocky islet at Guerilla Bay was dry so I was able to scramble around the islet before heading south and then east towards Burrewarra Point. I knew I would get stymied before the point as the satellite imagery shows several deep clefts into the cliffs, and I have paddled into and out of most of the gauntlets along here before.
The arch I have paddled through – scratching my boat – was nearly dry and I scrambled up one side of the arch to a view point and over a low point to the east. Further on, a bit of scrambling on surprisingly good incuts and I arrived at an open tunnel which I climbed into and out again on the other side. A rocky bay, and then the deep gulch and the end of the road for me. There is a faint foot pad leading up to the main track around Burrewarra Point. From Guerilla Bay I went north as the tide rose. The rock platforms are not contiguous but there are good tracks over the headlands linking the bays and I went as far as a good lookout over Jimmies Island and the south end of Rosedale Beach.
Shortly after the big fires of 2020, the council was offering free rides on the local bus service, and I took the bus to Rosedale and walked home, following the rock platforms and beaches as much as possible. So there was something satisfying in also walking the section of coast from Guerilla Bay to Rosedale, thus closing a small gap. Now that the Headlands track is brushed out, it is easy to walk from McKenzies Beach to Batemans Bay.
I was feeling like a day off, but, with rain forecast (at least a chance of showers) over the next two days, Doug and I headed out early to go rock climbing. I live constantly in this state of tension between getting out every day and doing all the things, yet also feeling I need some training days and – gasp – even some recovery days. A lot of folks don’t realise that, especially as you get older, just doing all the things is actually catabolic and you need to spend some time building muscle back up. Of course, if you over-reach, you must recover, so doing all the things all the time is just not possible, except in TikTok videos and Instagram memes.
However, after an hour of driving, we realised that we did not have Doug’s pack, with the rope, his harness and rock shoes, his food – “I have no food” he plaintively said – so we came back home again. Frustrating for sure; and, when you hit my age you start to wonder if these moments of forgetting are a portent of things to come. But then I remember one of my Canadian friends who was caught in an avalanche in the Kokanee Range and one of her party had left the hut with no backpack (and hence no shovel, etc.), and my friend not yet turned 40.
Back home, I thought, “Why not take today as a gift. A day you don’t have to train, or get a long list of things done, or race out and run 15 kilometres, or burn my forearms up on the climbing wall, just have a day.” And, it was good. But tomorrow, I’m definitely ready to do all the things.
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