All the Way Round

by Stuart Trueman

  After a day of rest I was set to tackle the second half of Eighty Mile Beach, which would bring me to the sandbanks of the De Grey River estuary before paddling to Port Hedland, a section of 250 kilometres. So, with several days of paddling looming, I was up at 4 am and packing the kayak in the pitch black. I was astounded to find one of the guys staying at the park had gotten up to wish me well and offer me a hand getting my stuff to the beach—for which I was especially grateful as the tides weren’t quite so convenient on this occasion.

  With the 8-metre tidal range and a shallow beach, the water moves in and out at a slow walking pace; this may not sound like much, but in terms of tidal movement it’s huge. To help win the race I’d use the invaluable trolley system specially designed for the kayak to be pulled to the water. The trolley system supplied with my kayak is made up of two metal tubes and two wheels from a golf cart. You stick a wheel on one end of the tubing, put the other end into a purpose-built hole in the kayak then use cord to hold it in place. It’s light, simple and effective, and it packs away neatly with the wheels attached on the back deck. However, to ensure the trolley system lasted the whole trip I’d offload the heavier items like food and water to take the strain off the wheels. This meant I’d have to go back to pick up my stuff, and by the time I’d returned to the kayak the sea had retreated a further 100 metres—a game of catch-up. Sometimes I’d find myself almost a kilometre from my camp before getting on the water.

  After leaving the caravan park I started to relax and get into a daily routine. I had been struggling as my body adjusted to the rigours of being outdoors and paddling for 7–8 hours each day. But I soon got settled into the repetition of packing up, getting everything to the water, paddling all day, landing at a campsite, unpacking and setting up. Despite the sharks, I was pleased with the way things were going and I felt like I’d gathered momentum after my bad start from Broome.

  At Port Hedland I found a caravan park close to the water. As I dived into the tent I kicked in a clump of leaves, which I couldn’t be bothered to kick back out again. What I didn’t know was that with the leaves came a spider whose bite was way out of proportion to its size. It had enough of me as I unknowingly booted it around the tent and as a result I had a foot which throbbed painfully from its reprimanding bite.

  Stupidly I’d also managed to camp next to some sprinklers which set themselves off in the middle of the night and pounded one side of the tent for hours. But the main reason for my sleep-deprivation wasn’t sprinklers, it was backpackers partying next to my tent. Now I’m mindful of all the people I must have annoyed with the aid of alcohol in my youth while camping around the world. I see such disturbances as a penalty I have to pay on their behalf. But come midnight my dues were paid and I got out of the dry side of the tent and limped over to strongly suggest the backpackers shut up. Although English wasn’t their first language, they got the message. I was satisfied with the result but I didn’t make much effort to keep quiet during my early morning start.

  I had a couple of days of 30-knot winds going my way after leaving Port Hedland. These created short, sharp waves that made for very wet paddling. I couldn’t open my hatch cover to get food for fear of it filling with water. The wind did mean I travelled a lot quicker, but it was just as tiring as paddling with no wind.

  One evening as I rested at a camp spot I was rewarded with what is known as the ‘Stairway to the Moon’. This is a phenomenon caused as a rising full moon reflects on the rippling, exposed mudflats at an extremely low tide, creating the beautiful optical illusion of a staircase reaching up to the moon.

  A shortcut to Dampier is Searipple Passage, a channel splitting the Burrup Peninsula. This was a great spot, though slightly tarnished as the mountains of rocks all the same shape and size were evidence the area had been mined. I guess when all the goodies had been dug up the area was abandoned, and with no further value it was then called a nature reserve.

  Here, there was lots of life in the water. A fish that had been sheltering under the kayak was chased out into the open by a shark, which then propelled itself and the fish clean out of the water, giving me a bit of an aerial show. Later, while I was having dinner, I was entertained by dugongs diving for the seagrass at low tide, much better than anything I could have found on the TV.

  A dugong is roughly the size and shape of a large dolphin, but with a less streamlined head and no dorsal fin. It’s the only herbivorous mammal that is strictly marine; their closest aquatic relatives are the manatees. Amazingly, dugongs are more closely related to elephants than to marine mammals such as whales and dolphins.

  Seeing my first dugong was something I had been eagerly anticipating. Encountering new wildlife was a major reason for my trip. I was travelling through a part of the world I’d never been to and was seeing some of the wildlife for the first time. Dugongs, sawfish patrolling the shore, strange-looking dolphins and many sorts of fish were all new and exciting to me.

  Next day I found that Searipple Passage emptied of water at low tide. It wasn’t long, however, before the tide was rushing back in to flood the rocks, making it a passage again. As the tide flowed in I drifted towards rocks that retreated under the water as fast as I was advancing. I wasn’t the only one making the most of the free ride; there were turtles, small sharks and many fish moving in as well. It was as if I was floating over my own giant aquarium, watching animals working in harmony with the tides.

  A few kilometres further on I found myself at the port of Dampier and was faced with huge jetties, boat traffic, railways, harbours and mountains of muddy brown iron ore and stark white salt waiting to be fed into the waiting ships, all of which were impatient to sail off with their little part of Australia. It was a real contrast to drifting over a reef bustling with wildlife a few hours earlier.

  After moving away from the evidence of mining I really enjoyed the 200-kilometre stretch from Dampier to Onslow. There were so many islands scattered around you could hop between them with no need to land on the coast. Most of the islands were only a kilometre across, with perhaps a few low trees cowering from the winds in small clumps as far from the sea as they could get. Surrounded on all sides by friendly beaches and with good camping, the islands were just calling for a visit.

  Another reason I was happy to leave the mainland for the first of the islands was because I’d been plagued by flies. But several of them decided to come along for a ride. After a day’s paddling I was down to three flies and felt a bit responsible for their predicament. There were no flies on the islands, so I know my three didn’t go too far from camp. In the morning there was only one, so I left a small pile of my breakfast for it. On reflection solo paddling has a bit to answer for.

  Apart from my three flies there was plenty of wildlife around the islands to keep things interesting. Little sharks sporting their fin tips out of the water, sawfish shuffling along in the shallows, fish jumping 3–4 metres out of the water, and rays and turtles casually cruising. Some islands looked a bit like bombing ranges with all the turtle nests dug out of the beaches.

  This was one of the most pleasant sections of the entire trip for me. Tailwinds helped me bounce from island to island for some noodles and a rest. It was trouble-free kayaking, except that most of the islands were so lowlying you couldn’t see them until they were only about 5 kilometres away. And, because my GPS had a hissy fit and froze, I was navigating with a compass and topographic maps that didn’t detail the location of the islands very clearly. But there was no real danger if I got it wrong, apart from a dent in my pride, so I enjoyed going back to the basics of navigation. Finding a particular lowlying island the size of two football pitches after paddling for six hours is satisfying and a great reward at the end of the day.

  I have a love–hate relationship with my GPS. Although today it’s almost unthinkable, even irresponsible, to head off without one, I’ve spent many years mountaineering, cross-country skiing, bushwalking and sea kayaking, much of it in very rugged and tricky areas, with
out the conveni­ence. I’d also learnt the dangers of becoming too reliant on them.

  A few years earlier, I was attempting a crossing of Bass Strait with my first GPS. Things didn’t go well. I was paddling against a strong current, with 35-knot winds and waves so big they often broke over me. I checked my GPS after six hours and found I was further from my destination than when I started! To make things worse, my kayak at the time was old and leaking, most of my food for the crossing was soaked and inedible, and my pump wasn’t working, so the cockpit was filling with the cold Southern Ocean. It is probably obvious I should have turned around and headed back to my start point before things got as bad as they did. But when you decide to look for adventure in rough areas you should be prepared to endure, overcome and persist to achieve your goal. The trick is to know when to quit. It pays to be stubborn sometimes; it also pays to be able to reassess the situation. What finally made me turn around and head back was that my GPS packed it in—I had become so reliant on it that I couldn’t imagine continuing without it.

  I landed and knew I’d had a close call, but nevertheless I was furious with myself for failing, and despite all the red flags I saw my reliance on the GPS as my greatest weakness. I didn’t use one again until I decided to paddle around Australia. In fact, I actually started the circumnavigation without one, but after my close call on the first day I decided even a small mistake could kill me, so I relented and bought one.

  Even though things were going well, the tough days brought me back down to earth and the enormity of the task at hand was sinking in. The reality of covering 17,000 kilometres and paddling for over a year was still hard to comprehend.

  I dared not allow myself the luxury to think I could finish. I was already worrying about the Zuytdorp Cliffs, which were still 650 kilometres south, and even the Great Australian Bight, which was months away, was on my mind.

  So that I didn’t continue to be intimidated by the distance and obstacles ahead, I split up the trip into sections then into subsections. The sections were approximately a month apart and would be determined by places where I could restock food and rest if needed. The subsections were areas between drinking water supplies or major obstacles such as cliffs or a cape where the weather could be an issue.

  This worked well and was quite motivating as I felt I was making progress on each section, although in the scale of things it was a drop in the ocean, so to speak. Concentrating on each section at a time meant I didn’t dwell too much on the problems in the following sections until I had to.

  My sections in this area were Broome to Onslow, approximately 1000 kilometres, Onslow to Carnarvon, approximately 600 kilometres, then Carnarvon to Perth, approximately 900 kilometres.

  Onslow was the end of the first section. I’d covered my first 1000 kilometres, and managed it in my estimate of a month, despite losing a week at the start. I was pleased with this milestone and celebrated by sneaking into a caravan park and treating myself to a shower.

  When planning the trip I didn’t envisage too many problems getting from Broome to North West Cape. This was based on my assumption that surf, strong winds, cold conditions and big seas were the main challenges facing a sea kayaker, none of which should be a problem on this section. What my imagination had failed to see were the actual problems I encountered—heat, humidity, huge tides, sharks, reefs and food supplies—coupled with the fact that I was drinking double the water I had allowed. My lessons were sharp and painful and would not be forgotten.

  Exmouth is only 20 kilometres from North West Cape. When I landed on the beach on 9 May, my first issue was to find a phone, as I had set off to Broome without one. Sandy Robson is probably the most experienced female sea kayaker in Australia. We hadn’t met, but exchanged emails as she gave me tips on paddling in Western Australia and put me in contact with friends who would help when I needed a place to stay.

  I found an elderly couple on the beach with a mobile phone and innocently asked if I could make a quick call to arrange a pick-up. Well, you’d think I had just asked them for a kidney from their firstborn child. I spent ten minutes convincing them I wasn’t calling overseas and even offered to give them ten dollars for the call. This may seem steep for a quick local phone call, but considering it would shut them up as well, I thought it was a good deal.

  During the phone call I realised two things: one, the value of mobile phones when I got to town, and two, that Janet Norriss, Sandy’s friend, had absolutely no idea who I was. Sandy had generously offered me a place to stay, but forgot to tell Janet. Nevertheless Janet quickly turned up with her young family to ferry me the couple of kilometres into Exmouth.

  I soon found myself being made welcome at her house. Janet was running her fashion store most of the day, then looking after her young kids. Despite this she didn’t hesitate to put up someone she had never met, who looked and smelt like he’d just paddled a long way, with the only reference being that Sandy Robson had given me her phone number. I hope I would be that generous if the time comes. Leaving a stranger alone in my house with my kids represents a trust that should be more common than it really is.

  2

  Exmouth to Perth

  On 11 May I started down the coast. North West Cape is where the coast turns south, bringing changes in the weather and conditions. Gone are the warm, light easterly winds, replaced by colder southerly winds which would get stronger as I progressed down the coast. The sea had a different character as well. It was no longer shallow, sheltered, calm and warm, as now the open waters were being influenced by the swells crossing the Indian Ocean. The temperature was changing, too; I had to dig out my sleeping bag at night as it got a little cooler.

  The rounding of a cape is an event to an ocean traveller. For me, North West Cape not only brought dramatic changes in the weather, ocean and currents, it meant a change in direction on the compass, signalling that progress was being made.

  Just past North West Cape is Ningaloo Reef. This reef runs parallel to the mainland, only about 2 kilometres from the shore, and provides shelter from the Indian Ocean for about 250 kilometres south. It’s ideal paddling with flat, clear waters allowing me a view into the world below of reefs and fish.

  From March to June the reef is visited by whale sharks, which are the world’s largest fish. They are completely harmless to humans, feeding only on plankton. Reaching to more than 12 metres in size, these huge animals are a major drawcard for tourists, who are put in boats for a quick ride beyond the reef to the open ocean. Then, with the aid of a spotter plane, the willing are dropped off a perfectly good boat to snorkel into the path of a cruising whale shark.

  The whale sharks don’t venture inside the reef where I was paddling and I didn’t get to see one. Even if I had paddled outside the reef I would have been lucky to spot one, as it’s hard to see anything under the water from a kayak, even the largest fish in the world. It’s a magical place, but I decided not to hang around and play the tourist. Sure, swimming with a whale shark would be cool, but for me it wouldn’t be the same without my kids. To see their excitement and be part of their experience would be more rewarding than anything I could get on my own. So I resolved to come back with the family to share the experience.

  One of the disadvantages of solo kayaking is you don’t get to share the best with others, but then one of the advantages is you don’t have to endure the worst with them. Solo kayaking has other advantages; the fewer people involved, the less complicated things are. There are no compromises about when to launch, how far to go, where to land or whose turn it is to cook. And while travelling in groups usually means safety in numbers, this advantage can be quickly lost as the difference in individual paddling speeds can create huge gaps between people in the group.

  I liked the idea of being in control and only responsible for myself. Being solely responsible for all the planning and decision-making meant I could give myself full credit for all that went well, and would have nowhere to hide when things fell in a heap.

  Abou
t 75 kilometres south of North West Cape is the ancient Yardie Creek gorge, which has deep blue water, red limestone cliff faces and a wonderful array of birds and wildlife, including the rare black-footed rock wallaby. After a slight hiccup with the camera—for a while I thought I’d left the memory card in a café computer in Exmouth, but found it, in the camera—I treated myself to a little explor­ation of this beautiful area. I paddled about 4 kilometres down through the gorge, taking photos of the black-footed rock wallabies living on the broken cliffs towering on either side. It’s the only gorge with permanent water in the area, but it’s all salt water. So I learnt another valuable lesson: just because something is called a ‘creek’ doesn’t mean you can drink from it.

  After my pleasant stopover at Yardie Creek the seas for the next 100 kilometres to Coral Bay were whipped up by 30-knot headwinds that made progress a struggle. This was a taste of the southerly winds that the West Australian coast from Cape Leeuwin to North West Cape is known for.

  I spent days on beaches, unable to continue south. I passed the time by gathering strength and resolve, and trying to work out a calculation which would make the decision of whether to paddle into a headwind or not a bit easier. I started with a formula of (headwind strength + effort needed – frustration of sitting on beach) / (lack of food and water) = progress needed. I got nowhere with that, as expected, but for ten minutes it did make a change from staring out to sea.

  Sometimes, after a day of waiting, I’d lose patience and decide to battle the headwinds, telling myself that any progress was better than sitting on the beach. Then one morning the wind unexpectedly died down and I managed to paddle in a few hours the distance it had taken me a full day to do against the headwinds. It was a bittersweet realis­ation of how much easier my day could be compared with how hard it had been.