All the Way Round (9 page)

Why would someone I’ve only just met take a precious day off to drive out of their way to visit me and bring me food and water? Why would a stranger offer to put me up in their home or take me out for dinner? Is it because I’m such a nice guy? Hardly.

Sure, turning up in a kayak with a story of a long journey makes me a bit interesting, but I like to think it was more than just novelty. I like to believe it was because these kind people appreciated what I was trying to achieve and were showing support through their generosity.

4

Esperance to Adelaide

I
got to Esperance on 11 August, exactly four months after leaving Broome, and contacted Ian Watkins, who had agreed to look after me during my stay.

Ian had just come back from Perth after competing in the Avon Descent. This race is a monster. Paddlers tackle the challenging Avon and Swan rivers in an exciting two-day time trial over 124 gruelling kilometres. The race includes serious whitewater in the upper river, with a flat-water dash for the last 30 kilometres, ensuring that just finishing the race is an achievement. In 2010 the race was particularly hard for the competitors as there wasn’t much water in the river due to the drought. Long portages were needed to get kayaks between ‘dry stretches’. Despite the conditions Ian had done well and he was enthusiastic about going back the following year, with the hope there would be more water and less walking.

In Perth, Ian had met up with Terry Bolland, the guru of the Avon Descent. With Terry having completed the race 21 times, Ian hoped that just by walking into his shop some of that experience would rub off and help him in the next race. Ian came away with Terry’s satellite phone for me, which probably wasn’t the sort of help Ian was hoping for, but was certainly welcome for my crossing of the Bight.

Ian was very keen to promote the trip during my stay in Esperance and I soon found myself giving interviews for the local paper and radio station. At the local radio Ian and I were taken into the studio where the show was being recorded. The DJ fired a few quick exploratory questions at me to prepare for the interview before the old song that was playing finished.

‘Are you the first to paddle around Australia?’

‘No.’

‘What is special about the trip?’

‘You mean apart from paddling around Australia?’

‘I mean, what is the
first
you are achieving?’

‘Well, I am the first to be third!’

The song finished and a very frustrated DJ had to persist with interviewing someone who was paddling around Australia but couldn’t claim a first. I had to sympathise with him—after all, who was third to climb Everest, or third to step on the moon, and who would think to interview them?

There had been around half a dozen subsequent attempts to paddle around Australia since Paul Caffyn’s ground-breaking journey in 1982, none of which had been successful until Freya Hoffmeister in 2009. There were a variety of reasons for the failures, from crocodile attacks to meeting someone and falling in love. But I think the main reason these attempts failed was because they saw Paul Caffyn’s book as a blueprint of ‘How to paddle around Australia’. I planned the trip based on my ability.

There were some differences in the two circumnavigations before mine. The main one was that my trip did not involve a land-based support crew. Paul Caffyn had a paddling partner and land crew for much of his trip, and Freya Hoffmeister had land support for the Zuytdorp Cliffs and the Great Australian Bight. I don’t feel that my trip warrants any lofty tag of ‘First without a land crew, but with lots of help from those met along the way’. I would hope that each trip was significant to those who did them.

Esperance is just about the end of the line before a vast emptiness that reaches halfway into the next state of South Australia. There are over 1000 kilometres of coastline to tackle before Ceduna, the next place you could call a town. Being so remote, the news that someone was kayaking through the area on their way around the country was something that piqued the interest of the locals. I even had all the children at the local school intrigued. I set up the kayak in the school library and adlibbed a child-friendly version of my journey so far. The kids asked questions that showed an appreciation of the wildlife and environment, particularly around their local area. I was impressed they were being made aware of the impact we have on the environment. For example, Ian’s young son insisted they use barbless hooks when fishing and let the fish go unharmed after they had caught enough for dinner—a great attitude.

Aware of my concerns for the coast ahead, Ian took me round to meet his friend Graham Gatt. Graham had travelled much of the coast between Esperance and the Bight in a small boat and surveyed the area from the air. I can’t stress enough the importance of local knowledge. Whenever I was faced with a coastline where I thought I would have to take special care, I’d seek out the locals. However, I was always mindful that travelling by kayak presents its own advantages and disadvantages, things that will not always be obvious to non-kayakers. Graham made encouraging comments regarding the availability of drinking water and sheltered landings while passing on his knowledge of the area, all of which helped ease my nerves.

Despite all the information I had on the coast, paddling east from Esperance still felt like the kayaking equivalent of a fifteenth-century sailor heading for the edge of the world. There is not much out there and a good chance you’ll drop off the edge and not be heard of again.

After the Zuytdorp Cliffs on the west coast, the next major concern for me was the Great Australian Bight. So that I didn’t worry about it too much before I got there, I had given myself the option of getting as far as Esperance then transporting the kayak to Adelaide. We all knew this was never really going to happen, but acknowledging the option existed allowed me the peace of mind to get this far without stressing too much about the Bight.

Graham confirmed what Ken had told me in Albany and I was now convinced that a solo unsupported crossing of the Bight was possible. The biggest issues I had to resolve in my pre-planning for this mammoth section were the availability of water, adequate supplies, and sound knowledge of expected surf conditions and the Baxter and Bunda cliffs, which stretched 160 and 190 kilometres respectively. It was a list that covered just about all of the things a sea kayaker worries about and was made more serious due to the remoteness of the next thousand kilometres.

As always, the weather was a bit of a wild card and if I got caught on a beach with even just a few days of bad conditions I could be in real trouble. It is not just limited to localised weather; winds far to the south can generate a swell producing big surf. I would be crossing the Bight at the ideal time, as I had planned, which meant the prevailing easterly winds of the warmer months were still a little while off. The trade-off, however, was that the hard winds still being generated in the southwest brought big swells and could blow for days.

This was crunch time and I didn’t want to wait around. After three days in Esperance I was rested and wound up to tackle the most difficult section of coast of the entire trip. At this stage I was looking forward to the challenge and would have been bitterly disappointed if I didn’t give it a go—a far cry from those nagging doubts which allowed me to consider transporting the kayak by road.

Ian had told the local radio station when I was leaving and they in turn broadcast my departure time, so I set off from Esperance on 15 August past a guard of honour on the jetty. Who’d have thought!

By lunchtime, I made Lucky Bay where I had arranged to meet Ian and his son who were out for some fishing. Lucky Bay has the honour of being the whitest beach in Australia, so I had to pull in for a look. The beach was nice and definitely a light colour but I must admit that if I hadn’t been told about its claim to fame, it wouldn’t have stood out from the other beaches in the area. I was only there for some noodles and after an hour we had another goodbye then I was gone.

A few days later, with the promise of the weather turning bad, I headed for the shelter of Cape Arid, about 130 kilometres from Esperance. It looked like a safe place to hole up until things calmed down again for the last leg to Israelite Bay.

My arrival at Cape Arid was less than graceful. The surf was reduced to one break just before the beach, which struggled to reach the height of the kayak. But I didn’t see the dense barrier of drifting weed that had accumulated in the shallows along the shore until it was too late. It was like hitting a rock! The kayak stopped abruptly, then a pathetic little wave knocked me sideways and rolled me over. I couldn’t roll back up as my paddle was trapped in the weed. Aware I was only a metre from the beach in knee-deep water, I wriggled out of the kayak and stood up.

I was covered in weed; everything was covered in weed. I was pulling it out of my clothes, kayak and ears for the rest of the evening. I had to smile, though. When I thought back to some of the surf I’d been through over the past few months and then considered the near-flat conditions that had just tripped me up, I was grateful it had happened at such a remote spot, with no witnesses. It would be hard to explain away a photo of me, standing in mirror-calm water next to my kayak, and covered from head to toe in seaweed, as evidence of my meticulous preparation for the Great Australian Bight.

I got to Israelite Bay, which is a further 90 kilometres from Cape Arid, on Friday 20 August, and met up with Ian Watkins and his friend Chook Henderson and their sons, who had all driven from Esperance. By now Ian probably sounds like a bit of a stalker, but one of the logistical problems I had was getting a food drop to Israelite Bay. This was very important, as it would represent the last resupply of water and food for 300 kilometres before the Eyre Bird Observatory, which was at least five paddling days away and included a crossing of the 160 kilometres Baxter Cliffs.

I had come to realise Ian was utterly reliable and resourceful, but even he surprised me when he produced a key to the only fisherman’s hut in the area. This turned out to be a real winner as I ended up waiting at Israelite Bay with Ian for two days, then after he left I waited for another four days until the weather was more cooperative. Not only was the hut a comfy place to wait but the extra food meant I did it in style.

The weather forecast wasn’t complete doom and gloom at first, but I decided to make the most of the accommodation and plentiful water, and gave myself a day off after Ian and Chook headed back to Esperance. By the end of that day the weather forecast had deteriorated, bringing the promise of 30-knot southwesterly winds and 6-metre seas. If I’d set off on that unplanned rest day I would have been trapped on an open beach for almost a week, which would have put me in a load of trouble. Certain to have run out of food and water, I would have been forced to return to Israelite Bay and then wait for a lift back to Esperance to restock before heading off again.

Israelite Bay is a sheltered spot, and it would be easy to look at the reasonably calm seas and be convinced by the gentle surf rolling in that all would be fine. But experience had taught me to look further. The horizon showed the swell out to sea just as ripples, but I knew that a ripple on the horizon gets bigger the closer you get. I could hear the surf smashing onto the south-facing beach 2 kilometres away, the birds that live on the open ocean were sheltering in the bay, clouds were running north and there was no drop in wind at night—warning signs that all was indeed not fine.

My weather radio only gave a forecast for the next three days and it would take me at least two days to get to the start of the cliffs, an exposed beach that caught the swell. Because I could only get a three-day forecast, it was important I picked a period when I thought the weather would continue to improve. After four days of sitting out the weather in comfort at Israelite Bay I was ready to go at the slightest suggestion the weather was improving. I was wound-up at the edge of the Great Australian Bight, the longest and most isolated and dangerous coastline of Australia, being held back by a radio.

The Great Australian Bight

On Thursday 25 August, with a forecast of 25-knot southwest winds and 4-metre seas, I set off with five days food, 25 litres of water and a knot in my stomach. It would take me two days to get to the start of the Baxter Cliffs, which would take another two days to cross. After that I’d have another day’s paddle to my food drop and the fresh water at the Eyre Bird Observatory.

I managed to cover more than 70 kilometres that first day with the southwest winds helping me along nicely. The sea was ‘bouncy’, with waves breaking over my shoulders as I moved further from the shelter of Israelite Bay. My spray skirt was leaking through the wear and tear of the past five months, the sea was cold, and there seemed to be no escaping it that day. Almost as compensation for a trying day, southern right whales put on a display for me, with one doing a headstand and waving his tail at me from an incredible height out of the water.

As I made progress down the coast, a dark wall of rock pulled itself up from the ground: this was Wylie Scarp, the start of the Nullarbor Cliffs, one of the longest cliff lines in the world, running for 790 kilometres and standing between 60 and 120 metres high. Wylie Scarp starts inland and weaves a path for 120 kilometres to the coast where it forms the Baxter Cliffs, an impenetrable sandstone barrier 160 kilometres long. It then heads back inland as the Hampton Bluffs for 320 kilometres before hitting the coast again to become the 190-kilometre long Bunda Cliffs, finally sinking back into the ground at the Head of the Bight.

After a night camping on the beach the next day’s surf exit left me shaking. I’m not sure if it was from the effort needed, the spent nerves, the relief that I’d forced my heavy kayak out to the open ocean again, or all of the above. I quickly recovered and my route followed the beach as it gradually curved towards the east to face the ocean’s swell. After a while I could see Wylie Scarp curl towards the coast to form the start of the Baxter Cliffs and so I started looking at my options for landing. The swell left over from the past week of weather was still moving up from the southwest, producing surf that was breaking at a height of 4–5 metres a long way from the shore. It’s always hard to gauge the size of waves and in the heat of the moment it’s easy to exaggerate, but after getting too close and sitting on the top of a breaker as it started to curl over, I realised the drop I was looking down could have swallowed my 5-metre kayak from bow to stern.