We pull our heavy boats away from the slipway at Huonville, seven years and a couple of weeks from the start of our paddle around Tasmania in 2010.
The heavy boats laden with three weeks food and everything else we need to get to Strahan feel slow and cumbersome but are a solid physical reminder that this is the start a long kayak trip. It feels just fantastic.
This time we are not alone, pulling along side are Guy and Ebi, also in a Dean 21, built from the same mould as ours.
It is an easy downhill start as the flow of the Huon takes some of the load off our shoulders; quite how much becomes apparent as we enter the broad section of the river at Port Huon and suddenly the boats seem to gain weight and the glassy water become more viscous.
As we make our way down the lower Huon past the fish farms and their very fat resident seals and into the Channel the remnants of the great Southern Ocean swells that have curled around SE Cape and made their way almost to the mouth of the Huon become apparent. The kelp slowly lifts and drops in a gentle slow rhythm.
As we head south, the swells increase in size until we round Whale Head and are fully exposed. They are small today at around 2 to 3m but well and truly big enough to raise huge sprays of surging white water up the slabs of SE Cape.
They cause a little trepidation too about the surf landing at South Cape Rivulet, but then only a short time later, there's a whoop of relief as we’re in through the surf at just the right time and with a surprising amount of control. Apprehension resurfaces later at the thought of getting back out in the morning, but we needn’t have worried. The swell dropped considerably overnight making departure so easy we didn’t even get wet.
We cruise past South Cape as close to the rocks as we've ever been and continue on for a long lazy lunch at Rocky Boat Inlet.
While Lynne, Ebi and I sit back in the sun fighting off swarms of march flies Guy dons his snorkelling gear and disappears into the water, returning remarkably quickly with two crayfish and a large abalone which provide the bulk of dinner for us all that evening.
Such a perfect day, not a cloud in the sky and a silky sea with a slow rolling swell. Rocky Boat to Little Deadmans, arguably the best 10km of paddling in Tasmania - if not the world.
We blissfully cruise towards Little Deadmans a few kilometres off Prion Beach, a gentle SE breeze behind us and the most amazing panorama slowly unfolds. NNW Federation Peak stands out on the horizon then Precipitous Bluff, Pindars Peak, Hen and Chicken Is, The Mewstone, Ille de Golfe, De Witt, Flat Top, Round Top, Maatsuyker, and the Ironbound Range. I push on the left rudder pedal and we do a gentle anti clockwise circle soaking in the stunning panorama.
We have lunch the next day at Anchorage Cove, Louisa Bay where a few years ago Ebi's group had buried some treasure, in the form of a bottle of wine. They left instructions, in German, hanging in a bottle to be found by a group following the next day. Unfortunately for the second group they didn't stop at Anchorage Cove so now years later we land and hurry up the beach to search for the buried treasure. The bottle was still in place marking the spot but no message. Ebi started digging directly below, he only seemed to move a few handfuls of sand, there was a whoop and the treasure was held up triumphantly.
The settled weather continues as we round SW Cape on a glassy smooth sea and continue on to land at McKays Gulch for a break and bite to eat. Just a couple of kilometres north of the Cape on the western side, the Gulch provides a lovely little sheltered refuge. Suddenly with surprise one of us points out to sea; we are not the only paddlers at the tip of SW Cape today! A solo kayaker can be seen about a kilometre away, heading straight for us. The paddler Stuart Trueman left Stony Point near Smithton, three weeks ago. We hear his tales of West Coast landings, wild weather days off the water and various other adventures before continuing on our separate journeys.
We continue around North Head and on through the magical clear channels of the Trumpeter Islets, studded with hundreds of basking, diving, curious seals, then to Mulcahy Gulch to camp that night.
The next day was Friday, our seventh day on the water and the first with any substantial change in the weather. The cloud cover was quite a relief after many days of burning sun and the wind was up too, from the south, a lovely 10kn sailing breeze. The swell too had become noticeably larger than any we’d had on the trip so far.
Cowrie Beach for lunch and by this time there was a wildness to the day.
The wind had strengthened and the reefs breaking up to a kilometre offshore along the southern shoreline of Low Rocky Point forced us out to sea to clear them and then eventually the Point itself.
The wind had strengthened and the reefs breaking up to a kilometre offshore along the southern shoreline of Low Rocky Point forced us out to sea to clear them and then eventually the Point itself.
It took us an hour to get around but from then on it was sails up again for an exhilarating run up the coast. The swell had really built by now, up to 5.5m according the Cape Sorell Wave Rider Buoy, so there was a little nervousness about landing. Our first option, The Shank, was rejected as we could see it was closed out from kilometres away and it doesn’t offer much shelter at the best of times, but we still had the Mainwaring Inlet and Hartwell Cove as viable options.
The coast was just one long strip of crashing white water and plumes of spray, offshore too was just as interesting, with massive breakers showing the location of reefs that forced us further and further offshore. We had Hartwell Cove in mind as a landing spot as it was one of the most sheltered options for us but that was a further 15km on from Acacia Rocks off Mainwaring Inlet. There seemed to be a continuous line of huge breakers stretching 3.5km out from the shore to Acacia Rocks. We were just outside the rocks when a fishing boat closed in on us and asked where we were headed. Hartwell Cove was too far according to the fisherman but we’d get into the Mainwaring easily, “Ol' Snotty’s in there, red boat, you’ll see it, head in, you’ll be right,” he shouted. Then having talked to ‘Snotty’ on the radio he shouted across, “it’s dead calm in there, they’re just bobbing at anchor, follow us!”
As we rounded Acacia Rocks, sure enough 'Snottie’s’ boat came in sight and now in the lee of the reefs and breakers the swell dropped off to a really messy confused sea which built a little at the mouth of the Mainwaring River but then suddenly within 100m we went from being madly thrown around to smooth waters with three fishing boats gently bobbing at anchor. Yeiw, what a day!
Despite the warnings from the fisherman that we’d need industrial quantities of Aeroguard at camp that night, it was one of the most beautiful and insect free. The light of the new moon sparkled on the calm water of Mainwaring Inlet, the breakers roared out of sight as we sat around the campfire cooking dinner and relaxing.
2 comments:
A great account of a great trip!
I particularly like the forth photo. Also that there is a beach called Cowrie Beach.
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