Because of the winds, reaching Coral Bay took longer than I expected but I got there on 16 May after a few days on half rations. Coral Bay is a resort town all geared up for tourists. It had many caravan parks, some right on the beach, but they were all full. I bought a pie and chips for a change in diet, and promised myself that the next morning I would get a good breakfast into me and do a bit of shopping before heading off.
Next day I paddled to a popular fishing camp just south of Coral Bay for the night. The effort over the past few days meant I had no problem falling asleep, but just as I was dozing off there was a thud on the tent wall. Kids from a camp behind the dunes had invented a new game that involved throwing things at my tent then running off. I let the first one go, but after the second volley I was ready. I waited in the shadows for their return and took them by surprise with a short burst of verbal abuse. This did the trick and they were soon falling over themselves to get back to the safety of their tents. I had no more problems that night.
Next morning I tried to get off the beach but a dumping surf break kept throwing me back. There was only one set of waves to beat but because of the steepness of the beach the wave formed itself and curled up to about a metre before tripping over itself with a crash. Because this was happening about a kayak length off the beach, I had no chance to ready myself in the kayak or get up any speed to break through. It was then I realised how spent I was; I had to catch my breath for a few minutes before trying again.
I was gearing up for a second go, with little hope of success, when a couple of fishermen wandered up, coffees in hand. It was early and there was no one else about. They started asking the usual questions and I tried to steer the conversation around to the fact that my tangle with the surf would be much easier if I had some help from someone. All in vain. They knew what I was getting at but it never occurred to them to strip off and get wet.
For some, fishing is not the main reason to visit this area but the only reason. I’m not much of a fisherman, there are more than enough people keen on it already. So when the main topic of conversation turns to fishing and what was caught, what they didn’t catch and what they’re going after tomorrow, my body language gives me away.
Then a woman arrived for a chat and I quickly realised it was her kids who had invented the ‘Let’s throw rocks at Stu’s tent’ game. I was braced for a spray on the do’s and don’ts in my treatment of her little darlings, but instead she showed genuine interest in my trip. It turned out that the mum was a former pupil of Sandy Robson, when Sandy worked as a schoolteacher, and she had followed Sandy’s kayak trips on the internet. During my carefully crafted conversation she realised I had just been spat back after a failed exit. I hoped she might shame the two men into giving me a hand. Instead she ran back to her tent, changed, jumped into the surf and helped me to successfully beat the waves while the two fishermen, still holding their coffees, watched on.
I reached Gnarraloo Bay which is just about the southern limit of the Ningaloo Reef, 250 kilometres from North West Cape, on 18 May 2010. This is one of the few places along this stretch of coast where fishermen are able to drive right up to the water and launch their boats. It’s a gentle beach that offers shelter from the southerly winds and waves. Soon after I landed conditions deteriorated as the wind picked up.
This signalled a recall of the various boats scattered around the nearby coast. My entertainment for the afternoon was watching the fishermen get their boats back on the trailers without getting their cars bogged in the soft sand. Their priorities were clear—they avoided putting a single scratch on their boats but would drive their cars into the sea up to the doors. These fishermen were hardcore and well versed in the exercise. Nevertheless, their vehicles got bogged and they struggled to stop their boats being blown away as they wrestled waist-deep in the water and coaxed their craft onto the submerged trailers. Those who made it successfully ashore joined a growing group of spectators with a beer in hand, helping those continuing to struggle by providing moral support in the form of laughter and light-hearted abuse.
I was watching the show comfortably seated in a small tinnie left on the beach, until its owner swam ashore and said that he needed my seat to ferry his catch to the beach. After he sorted out his catch, I found myself explaining my situation to him and his friends, one of whom was a professional fisherman who had fished the Zuytdorp Cliffs. It was unusual to find someone who knew the cliffs, but what really made this guy stand out was that he was positive about my plans to kayak the cliffs. They were the first words of encouragement I had been given for the cliffs and they made the dozens of discouraging comments from others, most of whom hadn’t even been there, fade away. That single short conversation about Zuytdorp Cliffs would be the only positive noises I heard about them but it helped enormously in my attitude towards the fast-approaching challenge.
Up to this point if I was feeling worn out I would only have to take a day off then I’d be ready to go again. But the headwinds were starting to take their toll. Carnarvon sits in Shark Bay and was my next large town, about 400 kilometres from Exmouth. I got there on 21 May and only felt the urge to move on after three days. I treated myself to a few nights at a motel next to the marina—it was great to get myself and my kit cleaned up, sleep in a bed and be able to drink as much water as I liked. They are simple things but if you want to appreciate what is normally taken for granted, do without them until it hurts.
Shark Bay is a World Heritage Area at the westernmost part of Australia. It has diverse landscapes, from red and white sands and tidal flats, to limestone outcrops and sand dunes. The bay is protected by Dirk Hartog, Bernier and Dorre islands. The warm, sheltered waters cover 10,000 square kilometres and average 10 metres in depth. These are ideal conditions for the many varieties of seagrass that grow there. The seagrass in turn supports the 10,000 resident dugongs, which represent over 12 per cent of the world’s total population. On the seaward side of Shark Bay are deeper, wilder waters, where surf crashes against rocky reefs and cliffs.
I was caught out one afternoon while I was paddling the shallow waters. Daydreaming as I watched the stingrays among the seagrass under my kayak, I hadn’t noticed the tide was running out. When paddling a kayak in water that’s less than a paddle-length deep, a drag is created. It can soon feel as though you are paddling through treacle. The extra effort quickly woke me up to the fact that the water was dropping and I would soon be sitting on the seagrass. I tried desperately to head back out into the bay to find deeper water, but was soon scraping the seagrass and coral with my paddle as I looked for a way through. I’d left it too late and I had no choice but to tie a rope onto the kayak and walk it back to the shore. My legs had lost some strength after sitting for days in the kayak and were not accustomed to working themselves through the water, giving me a few aches in protest. I found a place for the tent and thankfully the next morning there was enough water for me to paddle away.
Cape Peron reaches out into the middle of Shark Bay and offers dramatically red, sandy hills, a kaleidoscope of colour compared to the shoreline of mangroves which dominated the pale beaches streaked with washed-up seagrass bleached by the sun. The other reason I was impressed was a bit hard to pin down at first—it took a while for me to realise what was different. As I sat on the sand in the evening, I suddenly noticed the wind had stopped. There were no grains of sand being blown in my food, up my nose or in my eyes; I didn’t have to keep half an eye on the tent in case a gust took it for a test flight; I could put clothes out to dry and they would still be there in the morning. Yep, I had a good time paddling from Francois Peron National Park to Denham.
Zuytdorp Cliffs
Denham is the last town before the start of the Zuytdorp Cliffs. It’s in the middle of Francois Peron Peninsula, a good place to hole up while watching the weather.
If you’re planning a day of activities outside, you might have a glance at the paper or grab the last few moments of the TV news and take in some of the details that ar
e sparingly given in the weather report. If you are planning a day’s fishing, you’ll probably look at the internet and quickly note the wind direction and strength before deciding where to go. But if you’re going to commit to a 200-kilometre paddle in a kayak with only one place to pull out and a very good chance that you’ll have to deal with headwinds, the weather is extremely important and you suck up all the information available, two or three times a day. I’d been doing this for days on my approach to the area and for years before the trip.
After a trip I’d done previously across Bass Strait, a kayaker dismissed my achievement with, ‘Well, you were lucky with the weather.’ This didn’t seem fair to me. I’d planned long-term and short-term to get acceptable weather; luck wasn’t a part of it. I do agree you can be unlucky with the weather and get unseasonal or unusually severe conditions, but preparation limits that.
Preparation for the Zuytdorp Cliffs started three years before I got to Broome. I worked out where and when I wanted to start in order to get the best weather where it counted most. I spent many hours poring over weather facts on the net and in books to make sure I got it right. It was so important to me that I didn’t ask anybody for advice; I educated myself to a level where I could decide for myself. Where and when to start the trip was the cornerstone of its success and I wanted to be solely responsible. The whole reason for starting in Broome was to get to Denham at this time of year when the chance of finding a gap in the southerlies was at its highest.
Another part of my preparation for these cliffs was the mental challenge. Sitting at home, years before, I tried to imagine what I’d feel like as I looked down at the start of the cliffs. But when you’re sipping coffee at home, planning an adventure in an air-conditioned room, fully rested and frustrated that you’re not there already, it’s easy to imagine yourself being able to handle the realisation that the next day you will have to commit to an endurance event which could be your last.
It’s totally different when you’re actually there and it’s no longer a fantasy. It doesn’t matter how good you think you are at handling a hard call, you won’t know until it happens. Nothing other than the proof of experience is worth much at all.
For me, the alternative of just ignoring the problem of not having the motivation to tackle the cliffs, and just assuming I could make the right call when the time came, was too much of a risk. There was too much at stake. If I decided to skip the Zuytdorp Cliffs I would have to continue my paddle around Australia with a piece missing. That would eat away at me and spoil my enjoyment of the rest of the journey. It would be more of a disappointment than running out of time to complete the circumnavigation.
I saw these cliffs as the crux of my trip and I wanted more than an assumption I’d be able to spend the evening before the crossing with a warm fuzzy feeling. So part of my preparation was a solo nonstop paddle 230 kilometres from Victoria to Tasmania across Bass Strait in 2008.
I set off from Wilsons Promontory, destined for Stanley in northwest Tasmania, on 11 November 2008. It was a huge mind game to paddle all day and night then realise when daylight returned that I still had a full day’s paddle ahead of me. I knew that the first light of dawn would be a major goal but the time after dawn was the hardest, not just because of the physical tiredness but the mental side.
In the early morning of the second day, I reached around to open my day hatch to get some food, lost my balance and slowly rolled over. It was a moment’s loss of concentration, but finding myself upside-down with a kayak on top of me in the cold waters of Bass Strait was the wake-up call I needed. After a couple of attempted rolls I was still not upright. While I was underwater winding up for my third attempt, I noticed an eerie light wherever I looked. With my lack of sleep and oxygen deprivation, my first thought was that I was having a near-death experience; then I realised my head torch was still on. My rolling finally worked, but only after I noticed the water bladders in the cockpit had shifted to one side, so each time I rolled upright their weight just tipped the kayak back over.
I gathered myself after rolling, then had a really strong urge to paddle off with disregard for the compass. I could see nothing but ocean, there was no land or landmarks, but nevertheless my brain was convinced I should ignore the compass and head off that-a-way. The warning lights came on when I casually noticed there was a tennis court off to my left. It had the net up, an umpire’s chair, and was surrounded by a high wire fence to keep any wayward balls from hitting passing kayakers. But strangely, the court’s surface was water. Ha! I thought, I must be hallucinating! I was pleased with myself for recognising it as a figment of my imagination, even though my reasoning was deduced from the fact that its surface was water and not because there shouldn’t be a tennis court suddenly appearing in Bass Strait. It took discipline, trust in my preparation and the realisation of my state to convince me to follow the compass and take the correct heading, and after 35 hours of paddling I landed safely at 6.30 pm.
Completing the Bass Strait crossing gave me a tremendous psychological advantage. Knowing I could commit to crossing a long, serious stretch of water gave me peace of mind that I would be up to it when faced with the challenge again. I also learnt which foods were best, how much water I needed for the trip and what worked for me when paddling at night. As well, I was introduced to hallucinations and what to expect when my mind and body started to reach their limits. I can’t say it was a totally pleasant experience but at least I knew what I was in for with the long crossings on this trip, and that I could do it.
I’d felt the force of the southerlies on my approach to Denham, noting the fleeting forecasts of good weather quickly come and go along the cliffs. All the information I could gather confirmed that my window of opportunity was approaching.
When I wasn’t on the move I imagined the worst of the problems that could happen while tackling tough obstacles ahead—I have enough experience to dream up some really shitty scenarios to avoid. Some I can prepare for, others I just have to hope don’t happen. The good side is that I’m prepared when things don’t go well, and relieved that it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be; the bad side is I wear myself down with endless what-ifs.
Before I reached the cliffs I briefly thought I would like to tell my family that I loved them, and explain what they should do if I didn’t make it, but I quickly dismissed the idea—even mentioning the real task ahead would make them worry for no gain. However, it was important to me that, if I didn’t make it, I protected myself against the legion of voices that would bring themselves out of the dark, condemning the attempt, considering themselves experts purely on the basis of having an opinion. So I sent a seemingly innocent email to a kayaking friend, explaining my strategy, the weather and timing, with the hope that it would help in my defence should I get caught out.
It is 50 kilometres, or a day’s paddle, from Denham to Steep Point, the start of the cliffs. Then I would have to paddle continuously for more than 35 hours along the Zuytdorp Cliffs to get to the sanctuary of the little town of Kalbarri. Each day into the future the weather forecast would become less reliable. If I arrived at Steep Point and the forecast changed for the worse and didn’t look like clearing up, I would have to paddle back to Denham to wait for another chance.
On 28 May I was at Steep Point, the northernmost point of the Zuytdorp Cliffs, looking at the swell smash into the western coast of nearby Dirk Hartog Island, the surf leaving a ribbon of fog hanging over the cliffs.
My preparation being as good as I could get it, the weather forecast being as good as I could expect, and with all my food bagged and everything ready, I surprised myself as I realised I was totally comfortable with the task ahead. There was nothing else to do. I smoked my pipe and was content and relaxed, the rewards of thorough preparation. I had a good night’s sleep—something you can’t fake—confirming my state of mind.
I set off at 8 am. For the past few days I’d paddled the friendly waters of Shark Bay: no swell, no surf, dugongs grazin
g on seagrass, small sharks, rays and turtles cruising around in the shallow waters. But half an hour after pushing my kayak into the water at the start of the cliffs, the mood changed dramatically. I was in a 3-metre swell with breaking waves running over them, the water was a bottomless dark blue, while albatrosses and whales confirmed I was paddling in the open ocean.
I needed a pee but, with waves breaking over the kayak, opening the spray skirt and using the bottle kept for the job would invite the cold ocean waters to fill the cockpit. So I just carried on paddling and momentarily enjoyed the relief, sitting in my own warmth. There was no point worrying about it—after relieving myself the first time, how could it get worse? Later I calculated I drank 12 litres during the cliff crossing, and I didn’t once bother using the pee bottle. I’ll bet that quashes any romantic thoughts about sea kayaking you may have had.
The cliffs are an impenetrable fortification that rise up 200 metres and stretch for 200 kilometres, with almost no sign of weakness to allow even the most desperate a thought of salvation from the ocean. The swell, which had been running without pause for hundreds of kilometres, was suddenly checked with a roar and an angry foam explosion. But such was the size and power of the swell that it had enough energy left to bounce off the cliffs back out to sea, confusing the incoming swell. To keep clear of the competing sea and find rhythm in the ocean, I had to paddle 6 or 7 kilometres from the coastline. From that distance the cliffs themselves took on a softer aspect, but it didn’t matter how you viewed them, they would offer no comfort if things went wrong.
To make it seem less daunting, I split the crossing into five six-hour segments—covering 40 kilometres each—then divided the segments into single hours. I spent most of each hour calculating the distance travelled and deciding which snack to eat next. I had packed enough water and five bags of food which provided me with a variety of snacks to eat every hour. In each food bag I had the choice of banana sandwich, muesli bars, chocolate, nut and fruit mix, small tin of rice pudding, and a tub of cold cooked noodles mixed with peanut butter and dried fruit—yum.
All the Way Round Page 5