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.
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