From Port Welshpool we followed the channel out past Snake Island and into Bass Strait passing stretch after stretch of sandy beaches with rolling mountains of Wilson’s Promontory behind. On our lunch beach, sat atop some lovely granite boulders we saw three other kayaks approach and pull in. They had had a similar trip planned to us but the wind forecast for the following day had led them to change their mind and head into Corner Inlet that afternoon. We pushed on the last South to Five Mile Beach, capsizing in the surf on the way in but finding fresh water further up a tidal creek to desalt ourselves in.

The promised Easterlies picked up in the evening and whipped up swell and surf sufficient to keep us at Five Mile Beach for two nights. The small campsite filled up with a several bush-walkers, most of which spent a couple of nights and walked out the same way – the track over to Tin Mine Cove being overgrown after closures from fires and floods. Almost everyone, spent their rest day walking the length of Five Mile Beach and watching fish caught at the mouth of the tidal creek at low tide.

Early Saturday morning we got up and peeked at the waves. They seemed tame enough to get off the beach and although there was still a light breeze, the swell didn’t seem to be breaking except on the beach. We packed up and headed out passing Rabbit Rocks. As we approached the beach at Rabbit Island a lone seal hopped off its rock and came to say hello to the kayak. The beach on Rabbit Island was smooth except for thousands of tiny penguin footprints leading from the shore to the rooks. We pushed on across the swell on a seemingly never ending paddle to the North-Eastern tip. We surveyed every cove that we passed for possible campsites, but none were sheltered from the wind. Despite the promise of morning North-Easterlies we pushed on around to Tin Mine Cove.

Tine Mine Cove turned out to be pretty popular with boats, and several fishing boats and yachts were anchored by sunset with drinks and chairs and dinner brought onto the beach, at least until the mosquitoes came out in force. Along with our little tent was one other pair that had made the walk over from the Eastern Shore and were going on out via Chinaman’s beach the next day.

We considered the updated weather report of Nor-easterlies strengthening to 15knots by midday and weighed it against the current that wouldn’t flow our way until after midday and would pick up to 8 knots in mid-flow.. In the end we decided that the tidal current would be preferable as we could cut across some of it and decided on another early start.

Despite a slight headwind and the current we crossed the 10km stretch to the North of the channel in little more than an hour and knocked off the last 6km fast enough to be back at the dock by mid-morning. After unpacking and desalting in the strengthening sun, we were more than happy to enjoy flathead and chips from the Welshpool General Store.

This year we took a two day trip on Lake Tyers, a large lake in East Gippsland held separate from ninety-mile beach by some high dunes. The weather was iffy so we decided to dive into the far side and take two day trips ot from camp instead of an overnight trip. The first day we went down to the entrance and the second day we followed an arm as far north as we could. Eventually we had to stop and repair a small hole in our vessel, so we didn’t go as far as we wanted, but we had a great and relaxing time. The lake banks are pretty high, so staying close to shore we managed to stay out of the worst of the wind.

Loch Ard Bay from the air, April 2002: Muttonbird Island in the front-left, Loch Ard Gorge and beach in centre-back and the recently collapsed Island Archway on the right. (Photo by 'Roffy')

Way back in February 2006 I visited Loch Ard Gorge for the first time. The water was calm and clear. Ridiculously calm and clear. I departed from the Great Ocean Road with two plans forming in my mind. First, to get a kayak that would be easy to carry down the steep coastal paths and launch in order to travel under those beautiful arches and second, to dive on the wreck of the Loch Ard.

Exceptional calm in Loch Ard Gorge (February 2006)

In the following months I sourced a charter boat that takes divers to the incredible Arches site as well as to the Loch Ard, when weather permits. Also, on a trip to Canada in March, I investigated inflatable kayaks and later in the year I received the Innova (Gumotex) Helios II. Then we waited and waited and waited for a string of northerlies that would bring the calm conditions that I’d encountered on my first visit…

Eventually, in March 2008 we took a trip down to Port Campbell. The water was calm, but not like before. Even so, we launched from Loch Ard beach and paddled out the choppy entrance and through the archway in Muttonbird Island. Pretty soon we got uncomfortable in the swell and surge and thought we should get back through the entrance before things got much worse.

Kayaking through the arch in Muttonbird Island (March 2008)

I’ve been hoping ever since that we’d be able to go back and travel through the rest of the arches and explore the coastline. But it’s changing so fast. In April I took my parents along the coast and saw how huge the waves can really get. After seeing the pounding waves and how much some of the rocks had eroded, compared to my photos from a few years before, it was not too much of a surprise to learn last week that one of the archways had collapsed.

Island Archway, March 2008

Island Archway, May 2009

Island 'Archway' June 2009 (Photo by Glen Hunter)

David Michôd's documentary 'Solo' (co-directed with Jen Peedom) about Andrew McAuley's attempt to kayak the Tasman Sea from Tasmania, Australia to Milford Sound, New Zealand

In 2007,  Andrew McAuley set out on a 1,600 kilometre solo adventure to cross the Tasman Sea by kayak. His journey across infamously treacherous seas was outside of the range of helicopter rescue for all but the first and last 200km. After a month at sea, in which he survived incredible storms, 60 knot winds and 10-12m waves, he was within sight of New Zealand’s South Island. His wife and child were waiting on the shore at Milford Sound when a distress call was received. Soon after his kayak was found, but Andrew McAuley had disappeared.

‘Solo’, a documentary about his adventure and final days, aired on on ABC1 (Australia) on Friday 17th April 2009. The complete documentary can be watched online at ABC’s iVIEW for until May 1st 2009. Within Australia, it can can also be downloaded here, streamed from here, and is available on DVD from the ABC shop. The documentary was screened by the BBC in the UK as ‘Solitary Endeavor on the Southern Ocean’ in February 2009.

‘Solo’ is very hard to watch, but is too incredible a story not to hold your complete attention. The entire expedition borders on fantastical, and seems almost beyond the possibilities of human endurance. That he successfully crossed the Tasman is an incomprehensible achievement, and only serves to compound the tragedy that he did not make landing on the NZ coast. The footage is harrowing enough that it seems unlikely that anyone will attempt to repeat the journey in quite as pure a fashion as McAuley. His journey was so different, both in craft and route, to the successful Queensland-Auckland crossing by James Castrission and Justin Jones in 2007/2008, that they can hardly be compared in the same breath. Watching the video footage recovered from his kayak, it’s hard to believe that McAuley made it so far and equally hard to believe that he did not make it to land.

With regards to the film-making, it is worth watching if only for the footage recovered from the kayak’s cockpit. The interviews with his wife are emotional but also revealing into his psyche and strength of mind. However, I found the footage of his son to be entirely intrusive and edited in a way that seemed wholly contrived to tug the emotions of the viewer. This detracted from the piece as an expedition documentary and made it more like prime-time reality TV. Most interesting were the interviews with his friends and colleages, with regards to his perceived competition from the Castrission-Jones crossing. The section covering the marine police’s enquiry into his expedition was not given enough attention. As a viewer interested in expeditions (rather than personal dramas) I would have enjoyed discssions into the reasons for these actions.  ‘Solo’ does not have the style of expedition docmentaries that are made for film and that it was ‘made for  television’ is obvious and detracts slightly from it as an adventure film piece.

Last week we took a short trip to western Victoria. Our departure was a little delayed because of the fire-ban/high-wind warnings for Tuesday, but we still managed a few days climbing at the Arapiles, a visit to Naracoorte Caves, a short paddle on the Lower Glenelg and a visit to Nelson. Naracoorte Caves National Park was listed as World Heritage site because the caves acted as pitfall traps from over 500 000 years and contain an exceptional fossil record of thousands of animals. Most exciting are the remains of extinct megafauna such as marsupial lions, giant wombats and short-faced kangaroos. Naracoorte is also a very beautiful cave system containing every known limestone formation.

We also visited the Lower Glenelg River National Park. There were many people canoeing on the river but we had not made camping reservations. Being Labour Day weekend, the river sites were fully booked. Instead we paddled on nearby Crawfords River and found a really secluded camping spot, deep in some beautiful forest. We saw a huge spiny cray scuttling under a log, listed to koalas roar and growl at each other and tried to swim to the bottom of a remarkably deep hole in the river. Ross got at least 9 or 10m down without touching the bottom. Strange for such a small river with low flow…

We visited Nelson, at the mouth of the Glenelg, and walked on the beach. We found a huge whale vertebrae and saw lots of birds, including the very strange-looking musk duck.  We returned home along the Great Ocean Road and Surf Coast, stopping to look at cliffs and to play in the surf and on the beach.

The Murray is 2,575 kilometres long, beginning in the Australian Alps, draining the western side of Australia’s highest mountains and, for most of its length, meandering across the inland plains, forming the border between New South Wales and Victoria as it flows to the northwest, before turning south for its final 500 kilometres. The river has been in the news often in the last few months as it is sick; dying in fact, from lack of flow. There is water in some parts but others have been dry so long that they lack the organisms required to keep a river healthy. Upstream, too much is taken out (for agriculture mostly) and close to the mouth the pitiful remainder provides Adelaide with drinking water. None of it reaches the ocean. More info on the plight of the river can be found here. It is strange to float on a wide, flowing river knowing that none will flow out to the ocean.

Still, the banks are beautiful and we had a gorgeous time. We took a bike in the car with us and used it to shuffle the car to our endpoint, returing to pick up the bike on the way home. Over the two days we travelled about 20km, using print-offs from Google Maps Sattelite Images to tell how far we had come (!!)

The original plan was to leave Melbourne Thursday night, after fixing two (hired) double sea kayaks on the roof of Rod’s car, drive to Port Welshpool and make an early morning crossing (catching the tide-change and low winds) across to Wilson’s Promontory.

The first hitch in the plan was the kayaks not fitting the roof and having to also rent a trailer. The second hitch was the weather forecast. From a relatively good forecast on Wednesday evening the 4pm Thursday forecast was decidedly less auspicious with two fronts coming through and 30-35knot NW winds forecast for Saturday and possibly extending on to Sunday morning, when we would be crossing the channel, against the tide, back to Port Welshpool. After a bit of dithering and wavering, some pressure from the kayak rental guy and a few other good points (we hadn’t paddled together before; we hadn’t paddled these particular kayaks before; I wasn’t 100% certain that my shoulder would not fatigue by the third day; if the forecast was too conservative we’d be screwed; we were not familiar with how much swell would be coming through that particular channel, how swift the tidal current was or how much a wind would chop up against a tide and ocean swell; it’s a relatively remote place to be stuck) we changed plans to paddle the length of the Nooramunga Coastal Park.

Nooramunga is a series of low sandy islands just East of Wilson’s Promontory. Ross and I did an overnight paddle lastOctober in Eggy Bread. The kayak rental guy gave us the name and number of a man that he uses for car shuffles and Friday morning we got in touch with him and he confirmed that he would be able to pick us up at the eastern-most landing (McLaughlin’s beach) of the park around midday on Sunday.

So, late Friday morning we paddled out of Port Welshpool in ‘Banjo’ and Wobbegong’ stuffed to capacity with 10L of water per person and a huge amount of (very yummy :) food. Given the forecast, I was anticipating cold and wet.  But, Friday was warm, sunny, blue skies as far as we could see and even the evening barely required more than one extra layer. This may also have been because we were too onvolved in the great meals that we had all made to share (Thai green curry with chicken, turkey madras, sag aloo and basmati rice. Yum). Saturday the winds didn’t kick up until fairly late in the day but we were cold and wet on arrival at our second campsite. After a lull that was almost perfectly timed for dinner (just the last mouthfuls of some excellent gnocchi and chorizo rigatoni and, of course, the clean up remained), the second front arrived with rain and strong winds.

The winds had dropped by Sunday morning and we decided that our original route plan would not have been too awful. However, heading across the final stretch, a weld fatigued and broke on our rudder system. Not too much trouble in this shallow water with only a short distance remaining but a more serious problem out in the channel.