The Undead

The Sunday paddles are, at least as a regular event, over. This is actually the second time I’ve binned the Sunday paddles. The first time was back in 2024 when interest and attendance was repeatedly poor. I don’t why I thought I could turn a trickle into a deluge after the passage of two years with more people than ever out of the game unless perhaps I have a God delusion and think that I can somehow turn water into wine, bread into fish, and non-interest into enthusiasm.

Mentally, this is a tough call to make because I am essentially giving up and if there is one thing that really signals weakness to me it is giving up. Seth Godin, in his book, The Dip, argues that winners know when to quit and when to keep going. Dips are temporary set backs which require a no quit attitude while cul-de-sacs are dead ends where no amount of perseverance will create a path forward. Dips are a bit like over-reaching during a training cycle. You get fatigued, a bit stiff and sore, but, if you manage your training correctly, you are stronger and fitter than ever at the end of the training cycle. I am so used to pushing the fatigue (both mental andphysical), soreness, even boredom at the repetitiveness involved in training that I take that attitude to everything. It works for training but it will never turn a cul de sac into a highway.

When you come back to first principles, the purpose of the Sunday paddles was myriad and yet none of those many goals were being met. In group situations, there is always a social element, and, as I live like a hermit because of my difficulty in finding people who enjoy doing what I do, that was an important goal. But I also wanted to be out with people who like being challenged and valued improving their skills. At the outset, the Sunday paddles were meant to include some skills practice, but very few people are interested in improving their skills even when doing so will open the door to a much wider range of possible experiences. Sea kayaking, particularly under calm conditions is actually a low skill sport where you can complete many, many trips with very little skill.

Last Sunday, I actually had three people show up. One regular (who I will continue to paddle with outside the Sunday paddles) and two paddlers from the ACT who wanted to go from ungraded to Grade Two. I ran them through some of the basic skills that constitute the Grade Two skill set although I could tell by they way they held their paddles, sat in the boat, just generally moved that they were a long, long way off. Initially, I thought I might be able to tick them off on a rescue if not the actual paddle skills but even that was not possible. If you can’t competently complete a simple rescue in calm conditions there is no way you’ll manage in a real situation.

Way back in 2020 after the fires came through and the lockdowns followed, I ran Sunday paddles for almost an entire year and they were quite successful. I even had double digit participants and we did a lot of really interesting paddles in a great variety of conditions. It’s hard to admit that those days are over, but they are and no amount of wishful thinking will bring them back. In a way, it’s a metaphor for everything in life. I used to be able to squat my body weight, but I can’t now and no amount of training will get me back to that point. I can hang on to what I have and I can maximise what I can do, but I cannot, like Jesus, turn the dead into the living.

Never Use a Long Word When a Short Word Will Do

 Every day go back to the beginning and rewrite the whole thing and when it gets too long, read at least two or three chapters before you start to write and at least once a week go back to the start. Earnest Hemmingway.

Many years ago I ploughed my way through Nassim Taleb’s weighty tomb “Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder.” The book is full of interesting insights and ideas – many of which are pertinent to our times (no government has ever promoted resilience because governments by their nature promote dependence) – but, the thing I remember most about the book was a few sentences early in the book where Taleb defended his option to reject any suggestions made by the book’s nominal editor. After reading that paragraph my mind continually returned to rub against the notion that Antifragile would have been a much better book with more editorial input.

Grace Tame’s memoir, “The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner” is such a book, but more so. Tame’s book is chaotic, confusing, and contradictory. In other words, it is a book in desperate need of editorial input. Compared to Tame’s book, Taleb’s Antifragile is written with the precision of an Earnest Hemmingway novel; the author who famously wrote 47 different endings to “A Farewell to Arms” and was known for his stringent rewriting process.

The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner was nominated for a number of book prizes in 2023, but, thankfully, won none. This is not a denigration of Tame, but a reality that the book is very poorly written, difficult to read and requires dedication to get through. Even Tame’s most ardent fans – she is broadly supported by left wing Australia – found the book a challenging read and many readers fell into the DNF (did not finish) category. This is almost unheard of on the solidly left wing Good Reads platform where anything right of Karl Marx’s “The Communist Manifesto” gets a one star review.

I did not read the book, I listened to the audiobook version. Although I am good at sticking with heavy reads – I was engrossed by Niall Ferguson’s “The War of the World,” a heavy read at well over a thousand pages - and I read dozens of non-fiction books a year, Tame’s book is too discursive, too wandering, and too tangential to sit and read. Listening allows the “reader” to do other things and is simply the only way I could get through the book.

Tame’s story is well known in Australia so there is no need to repeat it here. The book traces the period of her life from birth through to winning the Australian of the Year Award in 2021 which, at times, feels too revealing, too nakedly honest. I’m not sure that the reader really needs to know about all of Tame’s later sexual encounters, or the drug taking, drinking, cutting, general chaotic nature of her life before and after what she calls “disclosing.”

Dispassionate readers have to wonder whether the chaos which seemed to permeate Tame’s life was a precondition to the abuse or a reaction. The book is so disordered and chronologically disjointed that it is impossible to tell. In “Troubled: A Memoir of FosterCare, Family and Social Class,” Rob Henderson (well known for his thesis on “luxury beliefs”) writes about the chaos that characterised his own upbringing and acknowledges that the leading indicators of success in life are relatively simple: marry before having children, finish high school, work full time. Tame’s life is nowhere near as destabilised as Henderson’s. She had loving and caring parents (albeit they were separated) and a large and supportive family network all in close proximity. Despite claims in the book that her background was somewhat impoverished, both parents had good jobs, the family had multiple properties, there were overseas trips and no apparent physical or emotional neglect and certainly no economic barriers. The abuse, in fact, occurred at a prestigious private girls school in Tasmania.

There is a sense throughout the book that Tame at one time both resists being cast merely as a victim of crime and yet finds comfort in various psychosocial diagnoses: autism, neurodivergence, ADHD, cutting disorder, anorexia nervosa (her words, and not the modern nomenclature now in use) which allow her to enter the now sacrosanct category of victim. Many of the experiences she describes as being evidence of one or all of these various issues appear to outsiders less caught up in their own mental torture and with the benefit of more life years to be the normal ups, downs, and round-abouts of any individuals life. No-one really fits in, we all struggle with our identity, making and keeping friends is difficult (although Tame, for all her psychosocial and autistic issues seems to fare much better than most in this regard), and, although these things get easier with age, they never disappear. At 60 we can be as fraught with self-confidence issues as we are at 16. Such is life, and it is made no better by the modern tendency to rumination fostered by therapy and endless affirmations of completely normal personality variations.

There is no doubt that Tame was failed by the system. When the grooming started, Tame was under treatment for disordered eating so she was seeing therapists and her mother had met with the school and requested that Grace never be alone with the abuser. The red flags were there but somehow Grace remained enmeshed with her abuser for six long months. This is both an indictment of the system and a sign that we should never trust strangers – no matter what position they hold in society – to be the carer for our vulnerable people. No therapist can replace the love of actual family and there is something dystopian about the way modern society appears to believe that various professionals (I use the term loosely) know better than we know ourselves. We should all be less gullible.

The book lumbers along under heavy prose with far too many adjectives (and randomly inserted expletives although I like a good expletive myself) often stacked one upon the other as if the author had one hand on the keyboard and the other on the thesaurus as she typed. There is a general sense, amidst much self-deprecation, that Tame is trying to convince the reader of her intellect by using the longest words and most arcane language available. Many times I was reminded of Orwell’s famous advice for writers “Never use a long word where a short one will do.”

Part of the difficulty of the book is that Tame frequently wanders off into random political discourses almost all of which fall solidly within the left leaning frame of reference and are delivered with both conviction and venom. One feels that her opinions are less well thought out and more the repeating of tropes held dear to the hearts of the (almost) communist left. Many of these are simply wrong. For example, she claims that America has no social safety net or public health care, while the reality is that the USA spends trillions of dollars on social welfare programs; a greater percentage oftheir GST than Australia spends (which is a big spender on social welfare programs). True, there is more economic disparity in the USA than in Australia, but Tame is simply wrong about many things she presents as categorical facts.

In Australia, where we have a government instituted Minister for Men’s Behavior Change (an Orwellian position), Tames thesis is a message for our times. Men are bad, women are victims. Grace Tame was a victim and her abuser deserved more prison time (I’d happily see him live out his days in prison). The fact that he was released from prison and then garnered scholarships and funding from the Australian government to attend university is a slap in the face to all Australians and Tame is right to be angry about that. The problem is, that the leftist agenda that Tame vociferously supports is how we arrived at this point in Australian history where abusers are more deserving of compassion and care than victims. Intersectionality works both ways and has enabled Machiavellian types to thoroughly game the system. The law of unintended consequences holds true even under the empathetic left, perhaps even more so as incentives go unrecognized.

Tame’s great contribution to solving the problem of pedophilia, grooming and exploitation could have been explicating why some women and girls are so vulnerable to victimization by men. Unfortunately, there are no answers in this book. The nub of the issue, what was really in Tame’s consciousness over the months she was groomed and abused, is entirely hidden. I finished the book feeling that more was concealed than revealed by this purportedly bruisingly honest and authentic memoir.

Solving the problem has to be a two pronged approach. Men, obviously, have to stop committing crimes against women and girls, but we also need to understand what it is about females that makes them uniquely vulnerable to male predators. Unlike the mostly low socio-economic class white victims of the UK grooming gangs, Tame was not from a low income family or a child in foster care whom no-one really cared about. She was (and is) an intelligent strong and determined young woman from a loving and supportive family, with friends and hobbies, and sports she participated in. And yet she fell victim to a predatory teacher. Why was that? What programs or social norms are needed in society to give women and girls the necessary skills to recognise and avoid suffering the same fate as Tame? Because if women are as strong and adaptable as Tame posits (and I believe they are) then we need to activate those strengths to prevent this inexcusable cruelty and wanton destruction of potential. Relying on psychopathic predators to reform their behaviour is not enough. We need to arm vulnerable people, but most particularly women and girls with the skills to recognise evil.

It's Not Unusual

It's not unusual to be loved by anyone
It's not unusual to have fun with anyone.

Les Reed and Gordon Mills

Only me for the Sunday paddle this week, which, if I could be pompous enough to use a double negative is not uncommon. Another way of saying this is it’s pretty common. Sometimes, not uncommonly - in other words, often - I wonder why I bother. I’ve only got 13 people on the list, and most of these are out virtually all the time due to a mix of feeling unfit, suffering illness or injury, away somewhere else, or just plain can’t be arsed. On average, per person attendance is actually zero trips, which really is an achievement on my part!  I don't think many people can claim that distinction.  

I need new paddle partners, something that is quite obvious from the previous paragraph, so I keep going in the deluded hope that someone young and keen will appear; but, at 63, after over four decades of adventuring, I feel like I have rarely in that 45 years NOT had trouble finding partners. It’s a very common theme among folks who like doing outdoor activities. Partners are hard to find. Which is a bit counter-intuitive when I scroll my Instadrivel of Facepalm feed which is full of shiny, happy people letting me know what a bad arse they are.

If I was going to be solo, the thing to do was obviously to try to crank out the requisite kilometres (generally 20) as fast as possible. That’s a way to make something more interesting and challenging. The Sunday paddles are generally conducted at a fairly lackadaisical pace and take a lot more time than I would allocate were I alone, so when I am alone, I always think about seeing how fast I can go.

My speed log (from Garmin) shows the effect of wind and swell. Around 8 kilometres/hour over to Yellow Rocks in calm conditions then a gradually declining speed which was initially due to lumpy seas and swell heading to the Tollgate Islands but soon enough became the product of paddling into both a headwind and a swell as I went south to Black Rock.

People often think paddling into the wind is the hard part, and it is if you are slow. There’s been more than one Sunday paddle which has ended in a tow because someone is paddling way too slowly to make headway in the wind, but beginners find downwind and down-swell conditions much more challenging. Paddling into the wind, the bow is well anchored and if you can just keep plugging along, the kayak feels very stable. Paddling downwind and down-swell beginners can quickly become very unstable. It helps to keep the kayak moving, catching waves is way easier – apart from the power and cardiovascular output required to paddle fast enough to catch the waves – than wallowing in every wave trough.

I was working to try and catch waves on the way back but they were a couple of kilometres an hour too fast for me to easily get on and when on, I had to keep paddling hard to stay out front. By the time I got to 16 kilometres, I was actually feeling a bit whipped from sprinting! The last kilometre was a little cool down around to the next beach and back at a very leisurely 6 kilometres/hour pace.

Life is Good

The fine weather during April has slid into equally good weather in May, and, after six weeks of solid training all I can think about is doing things instead of merely preparing to do things. On Saturday we went rock climbing in summer weather – warm and a bit sticky, especially for May. Sunday, Splashalot emerged on the promise of “interesting conditions” for my regular Sunday sea kayak but the strong wind never eventuated so instead of a downwind paddle with a solid easterly swell, we went to catch some waves on the Batemans Bay bar. The swell had popped up to an average of two metres with much bigger sets coming through which makes for good waves on the bar. Nick’s Big Foot (the footplate installed in Expedition Kayaks plumb bow kayaks) came adrift so he finished up the rides without any ability to sit himself firmly in the kayak.

Monday I headed out for a rip around the Mogo trails on my mountain bike. There was a misty drizzle as I rode to the trail-head which thickened a bit and became outright rain down at the Botanic Gardens so I cycled home in the rain cutting the ride short as all I had was a light and very worn out wind-break.

Tuesday and Wednesday we went up to Tianjara Falls to climb. The weather was perfect, some sun on the crags around the middle of the day, not too cold, and no westerly wind slamming against the cliffs. I usually plan our climbing trips up on the Braidwood Road for later in the year because early season we are always so out of rock climbing shape, particularly if it’s been a hot summer or we have been off on a big sea kayaking trip over the summer. But this year, we went early. Half to escape the ticks that infest the coastal areas and half because it always gets hard later in the year to find a few consecutive days that are warm enough and without the incessant winter westerlies.

The professional climbers love cold conditions to increase friction, but Doug and I are old, and all the cold does is prevent us from ever warming and limbering up. The climbs feel much harder than they should when that westerly blows and you are deep in shade the entire day. The Floatel, as we call our van, was fantastic. We parked in a bit of state forest and had a quiet camp with a view to the ocean and a big full moon overhead. I walked about in the woods as the sun set, happy that I can do that again without having to worry about aggravating any injuries. Life is good.

Autumn Training Days

We have had fantastic weather this autumn – clear days, light winds, cool mornings, sunny days – it reminds me a lot of Canada in the fall (the Canadian word for autumn) when the air was so crisp and clear that if you stood on a mountain top you felt you could touch the sun. It feels almost a waste to spend the month of April training strength four times a week, doing my physiotherapy exercises seven days a week, and just gradually creeping up my aerobic activity, but I am glad I did. I am feeling way stronger than on my return from Tasmania and my painful hip has all but resolved.

It’s really easy to fall into the trap of training and somehow forget that all the training is meant to support performance. Gym numbers, even for a person like me who has been training for decades, creep up, outdoor performance is much harder to massage towards improvement because it involves more than just moving heavy things around. Proprioception, skill acquisition and retention, body control, flexibility, strength, power, endurance, mind control, these all influence actual performance. And, of course, learning is reinforced by failure. No-one gets any better at anything if they don’t risk failure. Failure in the gym can be either avoided or controlled. Failure in the natural world is much less malleable. Kayaks flip, climbers fall off, mountain bikes crash. But what is this one life for if not to find out what you can do when you try?

Short and Sweet: A Paddling Story

I got foot, hand and mouth disease on a recent visit to Sydney so when not a single club member signed up for my three day paddle trip over Anzac weekend I actually felt a bit of relief. Still, one ex-club member wanted to paddle so I pivoted to a two day non-club trip over Sunday and Monday paddling only a short distance each day but camping overnight. Pivoting is the new thing that people talk about as if it is some kind of super-power which distinguishes you from the masses, but humans have always adapted; if we couldn’t change strategy we would have lost the evolutionary lottery long ago.

Short paddles for overnight camping aren’t really my thing, neither are short bush-walks, bike packs to camp or carrying mounds of trad gear to climb a 10 metre route in the middle of nowhere. Even when I was younger and didn’t get as fatigued carrying heavy packs, I couldn’t see the point of lugging all the extra weight about to do something over two days that you could do in one. Plus, there is all the extra time packing and unpacking, and, when sea kayaking, everything is wet and has to be dried out afterwards. Doug and I took two tents because of my highly contagious viral illness so I had two tents to put up and dry when we got back home instead of one. Somehow, every dry bag ended up wet as did both our sleeping bags. Heavy dew by the ocean I assume.

The weather and sea conditions were forecast to be excellent and I had a quiet beach in mind for a camp, we would paddle with a friend we hadn’t seen for a long time and I wasn’t really up to much heavy training anyway so I set off with a very positive attitude.

We had a lazy paddle south in surprisingly bumpy conditions given there was barely any wind and the swell was only about a metre. Strong winds had been forecast off-shore and these can cause lots of rebound when they blow from the east so it could have been that, or the East Australian Current could have been setting up an eddy along the coastal fringe. When we turned the corner at the prominent point to the south the sea state immediately calmed. There were big schools of fish everywhere but frustratingly as soon as you approached they flashed off into the deeper water.

Our little beach had a sheltered easy landing and it was really nice to brew up a nice hot cup of tea and put dry clothes on. The autumn sun set early over the high cliff behind us and the quiet beach became even quieter as full darkness set in.

I won’t lie, I was thinking about my comfortable bed at home but had a reasonable sleep in my very damp tent although I was a wee bit chilly in the early hours. At dawn, I crawled out and had a walk in either direction to warm up. I’ve been to this beach before but had not appreciated how good the rock platforms book-ending the beach are. Lots of deep rock pools with clear water, fish and crabs, along with tunnels through the platform where the water surges in and out.

Doug and I had two big jugs of coffee which I enjoyed tremendously despite my mouth sores and then we packed up and headed off. I was expecting calmer conditions and was not disappointed. There was no wind, the swell had eased slightly and all the rebound and clapotis from the day before was gone. We passed big schools of fish in multiple places, watched the seals lying lazily in the sun or semi-sleeping in the water, and even had some dolphins surface right beside the kayaks as we headed north. It was one of those mornings where it would be hard to think of a better place to be.

It was Anzac Day weekend so it is important to spare some space in our heads to remember the brave men and women who have served our country and continue to serve in our armed forces. There is a lot of chatter these days about Kings (who are democratically elected whether you like them or not), Fascism and Hitler, yet few of us in the developed west now have to experience the horror of war. Like everything else, we have grown accustomed to outsourcing difficulty and danger to other people while we proselytise from behind keyboards. But we should never forget that real men and women, mostly young, made tremendous sacrifices so that we could live as free people in a free land. Lest we forget.

Images by Doug.

Back to the Longhouse

This came across my Instagram account this morning, an analysis of a recent climbing fatality in Idaho’s City of Rock National Reserve. It is a brief, concise and respectful (if that is important to you) synthesis of the incident with three bullet points at the end which are all easily implemented and would have prevented the death of a very young man.

Doug leading Corny Hesitation, City of Rock

It is a stark contrast to the endless validation of feelings that define the Rescued Podcast. True, no-ones “lived experience” is substantiated, but also, the recommendations, if followed, would prevent someone’s lived experience from becoming a death experience. In the choice between life and death, most normal people choose life. The Longhouse does not have to imbue our entire existence, nor should it. The idea that we have to unquestioningly swallow down any and all instances of foolish behaviour is a destructive force which perpetuates human ignorance and even misery. Ironically, the greatest proponents are women who rage against the patriarchy while not seeming to recognise that it is oppressive to deny people the ability to learn from their mistakes and develop true resilience.

Cruel Shoes, City of Rock

In the spirit of full disclosure, I should add that Doug and I once an adventure trying to abseil down a multi-pitch route in the City of Rock with a "short" 60 metre rope.  Luckily, our feelings didn't matter and we let logic guide our decisions.  

Getting Better

It’s build back season. Trying to regain some muscle after two months in Tasmania engaged in predominantly catabolic endurance activities with the added complication of a hip/leg injury (likely a tendinopathy). Tendons are touchy things, particularly in post-menopausal women, and poorly understood by the lay public (maybe even some medical people). Tendons take much, much longer to adapt to load than muscles and, when injured, similarly extended time periods to heal. And, you have to load tendons to repair them. The old RICE format (rest, ice, compress, elevate) does nothing for tendons and anti-inflammatories, like ibuprofen similarly delay recovery. It’s frustrating because your muscles and aerobic system are fit enough to increase volume but your tendons are not.

It is hard to go wrong by applying the old 10% rule which, as every endurance junkie knows, is only increase volume by 10% each week. This might be too little because the walking I am doing now is far easier than the walking I was doing in Tasmania, but, the other thing all endurance junkies know is it’s better to be slightly under-trained than over-trained.

I’m on a new strength program which will, like all strength programs change every three to six weeks and it is a bit different to any I have done before and comes from the book The Strong System. Technically, it’s a book for men and women, but it’s pretty clear that Cori Lefkowith, the author, primarily writes for and trains women. This is not a bad thing as women have a vastly different hormonal profile to men and older women require different stimulus to build muscle.

And, we went rock climbing for my birthday trip. I try to always do a birthday trip. In years past, I’ve tried to make these trips a bit out of the normal, but, given we haven’t climbed since mid-December climbing was out of the normal. Of all the activities I do that require building back, rock climbing is the hardest. And, this year, I vacillated. Maybe this would be the year I let climbing go. There is no gym nearby (it’s two hours to the nearest climbing gym at Nowra and it’s a bouldering gym which means volumes and jumps and is not really much like the climbing I do outside), and, I’m so restricted where and when I can climb with my tick allergies. My favourite close by area is infested with ticks so that is off the cards. Other areas require longer drives and I’m only guessing are safe from ticks based on never having got a tick there in the past.

Past behaviour might be the best predictor of future behaviour but it’s not the best predictor of ticks because Doug got a tick yesterday when we were out climbing. First time ever for that location. I had taken my usual precautions – full body rub down with 80% Deet (delightful), light coloured long sleeves and long pants with pants tucked into socks and all clothing and pack treated with permethrine. Frequent tick checks, shoes and socks back on between climbs. I’m not sure whether Doug was just unlucky or my precautions are working. Obviously, putting aside Doug’s bad luck, the latter would be the best option for me.

Anyway, as I was mulling over my enthusiasm level for the long road back to rock climbing fitness (I am doing some short sessions on my home wall), this post arrived from one of the substacks I follow. Hopefully you can read it without being subscribed (I only have a free subscription and I can read it). There are a lot of good ideas in here, especially if you are not sure how to train for being a functional human and more particularly, a functional old human. But for me, as I wavered on the edge of “perhaps I’ll let climbing go,” I read this section:

Rock Climbing: Still the “best” Thing I Do. I’m not trying to send hard routes.¹ I’m there for what climbing does that nothing else fully replicates: full-body tension and coordination, grip strength under fatigue, dynamic weight shifts, problem-solving in three dimensions, proprioceptive demands on surfaces that are irregular and unpredictable.

Life is about doing things you don’t necessarily want to do, or things that you find hard to do, but which ultimately lead to something you want very badly. Two months of injury where I could hardly sit, stand or lie comfortably. Two months of not being my most happily active. Two months of nagging discomfit and pain. After that, I realised that I am prepared to take the first few faltering steps along the road to building back climbing fitness. The first pitch of the day was not good, but the later pitches got better, and, no matter where you start, you can always get better.

1I can’t send hard routes!

The Needles and Sentinel Ridge

Here are two final bushwalks from Tasmania, both in the southwest of the state. The Needles trail leaves from the high point of the Gordon River Road and quickly climbs up to a 900 metre saddle. The 1032 metre high point is a short jaunt to the west from there. The trail is good and from what we saw popular. We didn’t have much of a view as the cloud which was sitting on the top of the ridge slowly descended as we ascended.

Next is Sentinel where we had marginally better weather, the cloud bases were a little higher. The topographic map marks Wedge River picnic ground which has fallen into disrepair and had the toilets removed. The short access road has some deep potholes and is overhung with vegetation but is still passable.

From the picnic area, you look straight at the north face of Sentinel Ridge which looks very steep because it is very steep. Improbably, the track goes right up the face beside a big buttress which sports the 300 metre traditional climbing route, Moonlight Buttress. The steepest part of the walk ends at a small saddle between an outlier peak to the north and the main Sentinel Range which runs roughly west to east. The trail continues south below a small high point and then along a narrow but vegetated ridge to the 974 metre high point. The ridge section has a few false leads and to avoid these you should stay as close to ridge top as possible.

Mount Wedge, to the northeast, never raised its head from the clouds and southeast towards the Mount Anne area was also solidly in cloud. But, we had some views and the walk up is atmospheric beside the big quartzite buttress. This was another popular walk with three parties completing it the day before us. It is a steep track, particularly for short people with gammy hips!

Mount Stronach and Mount Arthur

Two short but very good walks. There are two ways up Mount Arthur, one comes in from the north, the other from the south yet they join at around 1000 metres and travel east then south to the summit. We took the north trail because it’s less distance driving on gravel roads. There is a very small pull-off available on Mountain Road and the trail is well marked and in really good shape all the way. Around 1100 metres the trail breaks out of the trees onto the plateau where the track heads south to the big cairn on the summit.

Mount Stronach has rock slabs at the top that are visible from the nearby town of Scottsdale. There is a really good trail to the top which leaves from Buckneys Road and is well signed.

Furneaux Islands Redux: Around the Outside

Preamble:

In 2019, Doug and I paddled around the western islands of the FurneauxGroup in a party of eight. While there is safety in numbers, and with eight paddlers, someone is always nearby if you need a rescue, I came away with the conviction that eight people is too many for a cohesive trip. Splinter groups form and eight people can seldom agree on anything, least of all where they want to paddle! We had astoundingly good weather on that trip - if anything it was too hot and sunny – and early on, as in the first day out, Doug and I thought we should use the good weather to circumnavigate both Clarke Island and Cape Barren Island. The east side of Flinders Island is just one long sandy beach so that held less interest for us, but the east sides of Cape Barren and Clarke Islands were very appealing. After all, who doesn’t want to paddle through a 500 metre wide passage called Sea Lion Narrows?

The chart, however, is full of ominous words and symbols: tidal rapids, three knot currents, Pot Boil Point, Stern Choppers and Vanisttart Shoals: Breaks Heavily, Washy Rock: Breaks Heavily, Moriarty Shoals: Breaks Heavily. In 2019 no-one was interested in visiting the more remote east sides of the islands. Some friends had attempted a circumnavigation the year before but had only got around Clarke Island and had spent days camped on small islands on the west side sitting out weather. Another trip report included multiple capsizes as paddlers attempted to launch off the beach on the east side of Flinders Island and yet another report details multiple members of the paddling party capsizing in tidal rapids off Moriarty Point. And, of course, there are two crossing of Banks Strait.

Despite all this, it still seemed like a good idea. There was a vague hope that we might get to the Sisters Islands, off the north end of Flinders Island, and a circuit route of an island group is always aesthetically preferable to an “out and back” as we had done in 2019. In the month before the trip, Mark had to drop out due to a long standing shoulder injury (getting old sucks but you can save your shoulders by hanging every day), which left myself, Doug and Harry. There were no really long distances to paddle, the longest day would be around 45 kilometres which is 20 kilometres (or an average kayakers day out) shorter than the crossing from Royden Island or Killiecrankie to Deal Island, but it would be a short statured post menopausal woman (me) against two blokes, one of whom is a big bloke who paddles fast.

I trained. Not as religiously or with as much fervour or even enjoyment as two years previous when we paddled southwest Tasmania, but I did train. There are two good things about training and one is when it stops. The other is feeling fit on the trip. I got the first but not the second. On the second day out, my hip blew up and I never recovered. I missed the entire east side of Flinders Island and had to severely limit my walking and exploring after paddle days. Getting old sucks, and it’s hard to hang from your toes.

Little Musselroe Bay to Spike Bay

Apart from a tussle with Lookout Rock we had an uneventful crossing arriving at Spike Bay at 5:00 pm. The tide was ripping north along the west coast as we approached Clarke Island and the friendly easterly wind had turned into a headwind. At Lookout Rock, Doug and I spent 10 to 12 minutes paddling all out to try and get around the southern end, a fruitless and also foolish thing to do. We were both perhaps a little confused perhaps thinking Lookout Rock was Spike Island or perhaps just confused. I know that I was paddling so hard I couldn’t think about anything else. My Garmin track for that section shows my heart-rate red-lining while my speed was zero. When we gave up and floated around the north side of Lookout Rock, we were doing about 12 kilometres an hour. Crossing Banks Strait is always an event even when it is uneventful. The currents dictate paddling on bearings that feel anything from very off, to slightly off and never quite right.

The next day we had very calm conditions and sunny weather but a westerly blow was forecast for the following day so our aim was to find a campsite that would be good for two days, one of which would require shelter. Paddling past Foam Point, there was no foam, conditions were so calm and we ambled along the west side of Preservation Island and across to Cape St John, also very calm. The western side of Cape Barren Island has lovely paddling with little sandy beaches and a plethora of granite boulders and rocks. At Old Township Cove we stopped for lunch and a swim, and then, on a compass bearing, paddled across to Badger Island. We had permission from the land owners to camp, and set up our tents under the shelter of some tea trees on nice flat grassy ground. The white sand beach, granite boulders and backdrop of the Strzelecki Range made for a beautiful camp. Unfortunately, my hip had gone completely buggar up and I discovered that my carefully packed medication supply had been left behind at Little Musselroe Bay. Harry had a half dozen anti-inflammatories but I felt guilty using up his supply so only took one which had as much effect as eating a piece of penguin dung.

It blew hard all the next day, and I hobbled around the island gently with a large branch as a walking stick, feeling both bored (I dislike doing nothing much) and sorry for myself. Heavy rain in the evening as a cold front swept through.

Badger Island to Cave Beach

It was hard to be miserable the next day however, when we had a light tail wind and sunny weather to paddle north to Cave Beach near Wybalenna. We had been past all these islands before in 2019, but it was nice to revisit Mount Chappell Island, East Kangaroo Island, Little Chalky Island and Chalky Island where we stopped for lunch and another swim, past Wybalenna Island and Settlement Point and around a rocky coastline to Cave Beach. Cave Beach has soft limestone with arches and caves and I managed to ease my kayak right through an arch before the tide dropped and it was much too dry to paddle.

Cave Beach to Roydon Island

Despite the northerly wind forecast for the next day, the trip must go on. Roydon Island is only 15 kilometres north-north-east of Cave Beach but the paddle took us over three hours. We had expected only minor currents in large Marshall Bay but, when our speeds hit lows of 4 kilometres an hour it was clear we were against both wind and tide.

At Roydon Island the hut is well tended and there is a new toilet – a hole in the ground with a seat and planks to cover it when not in use. Two young men were in-situ on a crossing from south to north, and they had been in-situ for some days. I think in the end they spent over a week at Royden Island. I’m not sure what their plan was but they seemed to be waiting for several perfect paddle days in a row to begin the long crossings to Deal, Hogan, and the Victorian mainland. This is folly in Tasmania. If you get a good day you take it.

Doug and I found a good campsite in the trees with some shade while Harry squeezed in near the hut. There are good campsites to be found, but mostly they are tucked away in the bush and require reasonably long carries from the beach. My hip was good enough that afternoon that I managed to limp my way right around Roydon Island, but then it was terrible the next day so this was probably a mistake. It was glorious, though, to walk around and explore as I normally do.

Roydon Island to Killiecrankie

The tidal currents dictate everything in the Furneaux Group as paddling against them is either difficult or impossible. That meant we couldn’t leave Roydon Island for Killiecrankie until 2:30 pm when the current should sweep us along the coast past Cape Frankland to Killiecrankie Bay. Perhaps because of yesterdays walk, my hip was a problem, and the only position I could manage was to slump down with my leg on stacked up dry bags. It was a long morning, but finally it was time to leave.

The current still seemed to be against us as we paddled north along Roydon Island. Harry and I were in the middle of the narrow passage between Roydon Island and Flinders Island while Doug hugged the Flinders Island coast. We met in an eddy by a rock reef off the north side of Roydon Island and paddled out into open water. By the time we reached Twelve Hour Point a couple of kilometres south of Cape Franklin the wind had abated and the tide was running north. We covered the 14 kilometres to Killiecrankie in two hours. This was a really nice and familiar paddle past granite boulders and steep hillsides, Sentinel Island and tiny Boat Harbour, finally through the gap between Nobbys Rock and Killiecrankie.

We decided to stay with Jude who runs both an olive plantation and a rustic camping area. There is another westerly blow forecast for the next day and we are hoping Doug can hitch-hike into Whitemark to secure some anti-inflammatories. Jude’s property has a rope hanging down from a tree to assist with the steep climb up a soft sand bank to the camping area. So much of the Furneaux Group is just sand deposited against granite hillsides. There are two toilets, some rustic cabins (which will prove beneficial later on), drinking water supplies (rain-water) and a cold shower of creek water. Jude is very helpful and used to welcoming kayakers on Bass Strait journeys. There are jack-jumper ants everywhere! I am supremely cautious as people with tick, bee, wasp anaphylaxis often cross react to jack-jumper ants. Doug gets two bites, but I wore shoes and socks everywhere and managed to avoid that particular hazard.

Dark Times at Killiecrankie

Doug had a busy day, Harry and I, not so much. I sat about with my leg elevated while Harry sat about studying charts and weather and working out a plan! I should really do more of that! I did manage a couple of short walks and looked longingly at Mount Killiecrankie, which I had really wanted to climb on this trip. Poor Doug was up and away early to walk the six kilometres out to the main road to try and hitch-hike to Whitemark. He got lucky with rides in both directions but the trip still consumed the better part of the day for him. When he got back, I gobbled down two ibuprofen and got myself on a regular regime.

We had a BBQ dinner at the picnic area and boat ramp and made plans for the next three days which, at this point, I did not realise would not include me. Moderate westerlies were still expected for the next day, but after that, there was two days of easterlies before the wind switched southerly. That meant we had two days to cover 80 kilometres along the east coast of Flinders Island. In order to be in position for this, we would also need to paddle 20 kilometres the following day to camp at Northeast River. That, if you are counting, is 100 kilometres in three days. With two good legs, it would be long, but I could make it, but my leg and hip was such that I was unable to get much leg drive as I paddled so I sat like a floppy doll in the kayak with a much less effective and efficient stroke than normal. On top of that are the tidal currents which meant we could not leave Killicrankie until the afternoon when the westerly wind would be blowing at around 20 knots. Conditions would be interesting, particularly around Blyth Point.

Still, I was keen to go, and began a regular three times a day dosing regime with our now bounteous (Doug had bought 200 tablets) anti-inflammatory supplies. The next morning, the wind rose as predicted and I hobbled around camp getting increasingly worried. These pills didn’t seem to be doing much at all, and I was not convinced I could make it all the way down the east coast of Flinders Island without complete incapacitation.

Harry thought that if I did not feel 100% confident that I could paddle the east coast then I should not go. While this makes intuitive sense it belies the fact that I’ve spent most of my life doing things I’m not sure I can do. Often, I feel reasonably sure, but I mostly there is always some doubt. That is the spirit of adventure, giving things a go where the outcome is, despite all your preparation, not completely guaranteed. Life would be drab, boring and predictable without this.

And yet, if I crashed out on the east coast of Flinders Island we would be in trouble because there are no settlements and no readily available help. Doug suggested I wait at Killicrankie while he and Harry paddled the east coast and we meet up again at Lady Barren. I went through in my head various permutations of me paddling the west coast solo, while Harry and Doug paddled the east coast but I would still be prey to the tidal currents, and would be paddling almost the same distance, with the added disadvantage that if my hip did blow up, I would be alone.

It was with profound sadness that I waved Harry and Doug off from Killiecrankie that afternoon. Doug took the tent, first aid kit, our stove, while I stayed in one of Jude’s cabins and used our back up stove. Doug took just the food and water he needed. I had two further nights at Killicrankie, while Doug and Harry spent one night at Northeast River and one night at Cat Island. Doug sent me a text photo of the beach at Cat Island and I could have cried. I became convinced I had made the biggest mistake of my life, which, in hindsight, I can see is a little over-emotional.

On my fourth day at Killiecrankie, Sam, a young bloke on a working visa, arrived with Jude’s trailer, some padding and straps and we strapped my kayak onto the trailer, loaded in all the gear, and Sam drove me to Lady Barron. I arrived perhaps an hour or so after the lads who had really cranked out the kilometres over the last 2.5 days – there is no way I could have kept up with them – and had arrived at Lady Barron in the early afternoon. It was raining heavily and continued all evening so the big barn like shelter at Lady Barron was very welcome. I couldn’t believe I was back with the lads and could barely stop smiling. I was so keen to get paddling again that I could have been convinced to go that evening. Maybe.

Lady Barron to Harleys Point

We were off before 8 am the next morning with topped up water supplies as we had no guarantee of water before the end of the trip at Little Musselroe Bay. I thought I would recognise the paddle out of Lady Barron as we had spent a long time in this vicinity in 2019, but it was only vaguely familiar. The morning fog did not help. There were eddy lines and currents as we paddled out of Franklin Sound towards Ross Point on Vansittart Island. I did clearly remember this section with Rae and Doug in 2019 as the current was against us and we had to paddle like the clappers to get around Ross Point. No problems with that this time although at the Farsund wreck there were standing waves which made approaching the wreck more challenging.

Then it was a long, slow paddle down the east side of Cape Barren Island against the wind and current. We stopped at Harleys Point where there is a big granite islet accessible from the shore with either minor wading or dry ground depending on the tide that made a great kitchen. Thirsty Lagoon was well and truly closed and the water, while appealing to birds, was not so appealing to humans. Doug and I walked around Harleys Point to a couple of lovely little sandy bays tucked in between granite slabs. It was delightful to lie in the tent, fully drugged up on anti-inflammatories after a day of paddling and even a bit of walking, and watch the sunset, and equally delightful the next morning to wake at dawn as thousands of shearwaters streamed overhead. The shearwater exodus at sunrise is an amazing experience.

Harleys Point to Petticoat Bay

More windy weather was on the way so our aim was to find a good sheltered campsite to sit out a couple of days of bad weather. An added bonus would be some good walks to do while we were onshore. We settled on Petticoat Bay, a small south facing bay divided in two by a flat rock buttress. It was beautiful and had good walking in both directions from camp. The only negative was that mobile signal was sporadic so catching the latest weather forecast was hit and miss and involved walking about on some big granite slabs above the bay hoping to pick up a bar of signal.

It was a great day of paddling with the current and wind both in our favour. We paddled south to Thirsty Point, another possible landing and campsite on the east side, then down to Cape Barren where there was some clapotis from the currents, but nothing too serious. Harry went east around Gull Island and tried, unsuccessfully, to catch some fish while Doug and I rounded the corner and slipped into Tinkers Gut, a narrow bay backed by sand with big granite boulders on each side. It was a very sheltered location but a bit closed in feeling for a multi-day camp, plus, we wanted to position ourselves to paddle through Sea Lion Narrows with the tidal current.

From Tinkers Gut it was ten kilometres of magical paddling past a couple of sandy bays – Jamiesons and Christmas Beaches – carved between granite boulders, rocks and islets. At Cone Point, there were tidal rapids and I dropped my sail for a few minutes, and then hoisted it back up to paddle into the prettiest bay imaginable. Big granite slabs sink down into clear water, a sandy beach is backed by forest and further back, rocky ridge-lines lead up to Mount Kererd at almost 500 metres high; the top of which was shrouded in cloud while we were there. Even better, a granite shelf ran along the west side of the beach with good shade for sitting and shelter from the westerly wind.

We had two days at Petticoat Bay as first strong northerlies blew followed by strong westerlies. On our first day we walked along Crows Beach to Passage Point overlooking Sea Lion Narrows. Initially, we walked up the big granite slabs behind camp for a view, then descended to the other Petticoat Bay on the west side of some slabs. There were trickles of water which could possibly be harvested in an emergency. On the west side of this second bay there are more granite slabs and rock platforms that lead out onto the soft, steep sand of Crows Beach. Tucked in tea trees was the perfect camp site with some log furniture, plenty of flat tent sites, and good shelter from the wind. The carry from kayaks, however, would be long.

There are a number of shallow water tarns behind Crows Beach. At Passage Point, we had to scramble up some slabs to get onto a big flat granite platform overlooking Sea Lion Narrows. Taking pictures however, required a sitting position to avoid blurred images as you were buffeted by the wind. Sea Lion Narrows had tidal rapids in the deepest water, but either side would provide safe passage if conditions were too rough.

Next day I pioneered a route up point 124 (see the topo map) a big granite slab on the ridge that divides Petticoat Bay from Christmas Beach. This ridge leads eventually to Mount Kerferd. Ironically, I was the only one that didn’t get quite to the top of the granite slab as I had been wandering around for a while on this peninsular and was leery of going any further and setting back any progress on my hip.

Petticoat Bay to Moriarty Bay

There was a window to cross back across Banks Strait coming up and if we missed it, we would likely be grounded again due to the wind. The tides were not exactly conducive but they were manageable. It was, however, another day paddling into wind and tide and by the time we get to Moriarty Bay, the southwesterly wind was blowing at about 20 knots again.

We left Petticoat Bay and paddled past Crows Beach, a lot easier to paddle than walk, and entered Sea Lion Narrows – the passage I have thought about paddling through for seven years. The current helped us through and we passed Passage Island and then paddled south a little down Forsyth Island. Then it was a long slow paddle into a sharp and steep chop against both wind and current to Clarke Island. We were aiming, we think, for Black Point, but ended up reaching Clarke Island closer to the next little point to the south. Doug and I stopped for a break but Harry kept going. We caught up with him at Moriarty Bay. 

This was our least favourite camp of the trip. The wind blew in making it hard to cook, there was no shade, and no way to get the tents off the sand as the dunes behind were thick with sea splurge, a nasty invasive weed. We all walked around the talus rocks to rock platforms and finally to Moriarty Point. Off Moriarty Point there were standing waves as the tidal currents raced past but we would have no trouble avoiding Moriarty Banks, an area of off-shore shoals that break heavily. Around the corner, South Head Beach looked like a far better place to camp but it may have been a surf landing.

Moriarty Point to Little Musselroe Bay

Crossing Banks Strait is always an exercise in trusting the process after first making sure that you have the process right. Doug and I are keen to leave at 2:00 pm but Harry wants to wait until 3:00 pm. We end up splitting the difference and leave at 2:30 pm. It is a long morning at Moriarty Bay. My hip is still bad so I am resting for the trip back but it is baking in the sun. Doug and I put Harry’s tarp up for shade using the masts on the kayaks for rigging and we sit under that but Harry sits out in the sun all morning.

Finally, when I think I can wait no longer, it is time to leave. The tidal current is running fast past Moriarty Point – we could have left at 2:00 pm – IMOS has been off by an hour this entire trip. Bouncing around in clapotis, we are doing around 10 kilometres an hour and barely paddling. Doug and I put our sails up and are zooming along with Harry behind. It’s hard to turn around to make sure Harry is still there as there are big waves washing across and we have to stop paddling and turn the kayaks. Soon enough, Harry also has his sail up and is cruising along beside us barely paddling as he has a large sail.

For the first 10 kilometres we were travelling virtually due south from Moriarty Point and Swan Island appeared too far to our west to be reasonable. But, about seven kilometres out from Swan Island we hit the ramping westerly current and as we travelled south we were dragged inexorably west until we passed within 200 metres of Ladys Bay on Swan Island. There were a lot of tidal rapids and washing waves at Swan Island but as we continued south reaching mainland Tasmania near Tree Point, the conditions eased. We were about four kilometres east of Little Musselroe Bay and at this distance it was hard to pick it out – at least with my old eyeballs - but, the kayaks rip along at somewhere between 8 and 10 kilometres an hour and very soon we are paddling into the channel and back to where we launched 16 days previously. It might have taken seven years, but I have finally – almost – circumnavigated the Furneaux Group.

All photos except one, courtesy of Doug Brown.