All the Way Round

by Stuart Trueman

  Next morning, just after working out that I would be paddling against the current if I headed up the channel inside North Stradbroke Island, I saw a couple of kayaks on the beach. That was all the distraction I needed to wait until the tide turned. The kayaks belonged to Tanya and Gary, two members of the Queensland Sea Kayak Club who realised who I was as word had been passed around advertising a presentation I was to give to the club on the coming Saturday. Then another six members of the club arrived, making quite a flotilla of kayaks. They were all heading off for a play in the surf but unfortunately I couldn’t join them because I had to make a move in order to catch the tide, otherwise I could be late for my own presentation.

  It wasn’t long after leaving the group that I saw my first Queensland dugong in the waters of Moreton Bay. It was always a big event to see dugongs but this one was a bit unexpected. Normally I only got to see a dugong tail as the animal dived, but this time I saw its head and face as it was figuring out what I was. This was extra special and was a good ending to a great day.

  I found myself camping at a place called the ‘Tangalooma Wrecks’, where sixteen boats had been purposely sunk to create a small breakwater, providing shelter for small vessels caught in bad weather. The campground wasn’t full when I stayed but it was a good spot and quite popular with day-trippers. The wildlife in the water was plentiful, with many rays, sharks, fish and dugongs and, in the distance, beyond the rusting wrecks, was the skyline of Brisbane.

  On 1 February I set off from the Tangalooma Wrecks for a 70-kilometre paddle to Maroochydore, trying to make the most of the outgoing tide by staying just inside the deep water of the shipping channel. My great plan came a bit unstuck when, in bad visibility, with drizzle hanging in the air, I saw the faint outline of a ship’s bulk. I couldn’t tell if the ship was coming or going, just that it was there. Then things happened quickly as the ship changed course and I could now tell it was heading right for me. It may seem that in a big ocean the chances of being hit by a ship while kayaking are the same as being hit by lightning or that falling fridge. But they move frighteningly fast and are deceptively big, so my plan to use the deep waters of the shipping channel to catch the outgoing tide was as smart as walking down the white line in the middle of the road to avoid the traffic. The nondescript marker buoy I was heading for signalled a sharp turn the ships needed to make as they zigzagged their way through the sandbanks of Moreton Bay to Brisbane. So we were both heading for the same point on the ocean. I made the buoy just as the ship made its move left. I again thought of Jessica Watson and what must have been a very scary collision, in the same place as my near-miss, on her first day out.

  I landed at Maroochydore that afternoon and soon found myself being well looked after by members of the Queensland Sea Kayak Club. I stayed with Gary Forrest, a highly respected sea kayak instructor who had the numberplate ‘Kayak 1’, just in case you missed the promotional paintwork and various kayaks on top of his car advertising his business. The presentation I did for the club a few days later on 5 February was well received and a generous amount donated through the auctioning of kit. Rod Coogan was a standout; he donated almost everything a kayaker could want for an expedition and more. There were paddles, jackets, tents, shoes and spray skirts, and Gary donated lessons to teach you how it all worked on the water.

  Again, meeting with like-minded people was a terrific shot in the arm as I realised that there was a good appreciation of what I’d achieved. They understood, they got it, and I didn’t feel as though I had to make an effort to blend in because I was mixing with people who didn’t ask ‘Why?’

  I had now accepted donations from, and given presentations to, the three main sea kayak clubs in Australia. For the sixteen months of the trip I spent a shade over ․20,000. Half of this was donated by the sea kayakers of Australia, and because of their generosity and support I didn’t have to visit my bank manager to ask for a loan. I spent ․5000 on equipment before I got started, so all up I spent ․25,000 to paddle around Australia. This doesn’t take into account lost wages, the pause in mortgage payments and so on, so at a rough tally the trip cost me a bit less than ․100,000. When the financial aspect is calculated it can be made to sound like a big number; I could have abandoned the trip and bought a Porsche. But would you read a book about me buying a Porsche?

  I have to admit that knowing there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of people following my progress put me under pressure to deliver. But as soon as I started to move again and I distanced myself from the internet, I was alone, no longer influenced by my cyber-followers. I could see how knowing your progress was being watched could be a huge motivation. However, with a regular blog or web page there could be pressure from sponsors or followers to provide updates, news and excitement to feed the ever-hungry internet, and this need to entertain could get in the way of making progress safely. I was happy with my compromise of updating my progress on the web when I found a convenient computer in town.

  From Brisbane I was treated to southerly winds which blew at about 30 knots for the next three days. This got me through to the inside of Fraser Island to a small place near Hervey Bay called Urangan. I landed just after high tide at an exposed beach which offered nowhere to escape the strong onshore winds. Desperate for a comfortable night’s sleep, I walked across the road, knocked on the door of the closest house and asked if I could set up the tent in the garage. It wasn’t long before I was settled down at the home of a retired sailor and his wife, fending off offers of tea, ice cream and dinner.

  Next morning I found out why the coast here was called ‘The Great Sandy Strait’. The tide was out and I couldn’t see the ocean, just sand flats for 10 kilometres over the horizon. It would take a few hours for enough water to float a kayak so I went and found a place for breakfast and had a leisurely start to my morning.

  It was almost an uneventful day, but was livened up by what I now refer to as the foot pump incident. The foot pump is a simple piece of equipment, fixed to the bulkhead down by my feet and used to empty any water in the cockpit back to the ocean, where it belongs. It is operated by pumping with my foot, which activates the suction and throws the water out through a hole in the deck. It allows me to keep both hands on the paddle while emptying the water, which is really useful when the seas are rough.

  Every now and again a small bit of seaweed that made it into the kayak would get sucked into the pump and get stuck in the valve. This meant there wouldn’t be enough suction to pump the water out. Usually it wouldn’t be a problem and I’d pick out the bit of seaweed after I landed at the end of the day. But not this time. With the pump refusing to do its job, I was bobbing on the sea, mopping out the cockpit with my sponge, when a wave swamped the kayak. I had no chance of preventing a roll as my hands were busy and not on my paddle, so over I went. While underwater I shoved the sponge into the cockpit so I wouldn’t lose it and grabbed the paddle, then rolled upright. And that’s how I found myself several kilometres offshore, in a breaking sea, with a cockpit full of water that I couldn’t empty because of the faulty pump. I had a few options but instinctively began with the obvious one of swearing loudly at the pump. To my surprise, and relief, that got an instant result as the pump seemed to realise this was not the time to mess around. It started working again so, pumping furiously with one foot to empty the water, I hurried to secure the spray skirt to prevent any more ‘swamping’, while using the paddle to brace against oncoming waves that threatened to roll me again. Fortunately, I was soon on my way.

  February 11 marked ten months since I had left Broome and I found myself approaching Rules Beach, 50 kilometres north of Bundaberg. I took a quick look up Baffle Creek and it looked as if I could find a camping spot upstream. I was lowering the sail and putting anything not tied on into the hatch so I wouldn’t lose it in the surf when tackling the bar protecting Baffle Creek when I had another drama. After leaving Brisbane I’d been hit by a strong gust of wind as I passed a headland, which put a slight bend in the sail
mast. This was a bit of a pain, not while sailing, but when lowering the mast, as I had to be careful to make it fall correctly.

  I was just before the breakers off Baffle Creek. The wind was from before, pushing me closer as I casually prepared for the surf by lowering the mast with a cord running from where I was sitting to the bow and back to the mast. Then, somehow, due to the bend in the mast, one of the lines of cord used to keep the mast upright (called a ‘stay’) caught under the front hatch cover and popped it up, opening it to the elements.

  My casual attitude was soon replaced by panic. I physically couldn’t reach the cover to put it back on. If I attempted the surf with no hatch, the kayak would fill with water, causing it to dive and possibly hit the bottom hard, I would lose the hatch and have to spend the night in a wet sleeping bag. Luckily, before the waves washed the hatch into the sea I gave it a prod with my paddle, followed by a couple of whacks with the edge of the blade and on it popped, just as I drifted into the first of the surf! Not even the heavy surf and realisation that Baffle Creek was not a good place to land could wipe the smile off my face as I broke back out to sea and decided to head to Rules Beach for an alternative landing site and my anniversary meal of pasta and lentils.

  I stayed at a caravan park in a town called Seventeen Seventy. That struck me as a strange name for a town but apparently that was the year Captain Cook popped in on his way from Sydney. It is also recorded that a turkey-type bird called a bustard was shot by the crew during their stay. Being far-sighted, Cook probably thought Seventeen Seventy was a better name than ‘bustard’, which would prove way too tempting for those who would later deface the road signs approaching the town. Anyway, the significance of Seventeen Seventy for me was that it had the last surf break of my trip. The Great Barrier Reef shelters the coast from the ocean’s swell for the rest of the east coast northwards. Then across the top of Australia until past North West Cape on the west coast, there are no prevailing winds to generate significant swell.

  From Seventeen Seventy I had a good run, managing to avoid the mainland and staying on offshore islands, starting with Facing Island off Gladstone on 14 February, then Hummocky Island on the Tropic of Capricorn. On the uninhabited Humpy Island the facilities were a bit of a surprise—I found taps and showers! This was the start of the Great Barrier Reef and I was much impressed with Humpy Island and naively assumed that freshwater showers would be regularly found at campgrounds as I progressed. I was sorely disappointed and soon learnt that a Queensland ‘campground’ would have a pit toilet but not much else. Simple things like a roof and a rainwater tank would not have been too hard to put up in many areas, but they were very rare in Queensland compared to South Australia and New South Wales.

  After leaving Humpy Island a boat full of wide-eyed youths passed me then swung round and pulled alongside, inviting me to stay at the North Keppel Island Outdoor Education Centre for the evening. I repaid their kindness that evening with a short talk about my trip to the young men and women. At North Keppel, I could see that the tides were getting bigger and feel the stronger currents. I loaded up with water and some food from Chris, the centre cook, who will probably never know how close I came to staying for another few days after the fantastic breakfast and fresh coffee I had to start my day.

  Between North Keppel and Mackay is Shoalwater Bay, a remote military training area with tides up to 9 metres and the strongest currents of the east coast. They are significantly stronger in this relatively small section than anywhere else on the east coast due to a couple of ocean currents that converge in the area. Before dealing with the currents, however, you have to contact the local military as the area is closed to the public during exercises. Fortunately this wasn’t an issue for me as there were no exercises happening at the time.

  After paddling the relatively populated east coast for a couple of months I was getting the energising feeling of rising to the challenge in a remote area and was looking forward to facing to the wilder side for a few days. It wasn’t long before Brisbane, its holiday beach towns and the port of Gladstone were a distant memory as I reached areas where nature had kept control. There were many inlets, islands and rocks squeezing the tidal currents into a frenzy, next to the unchecked bush which stood indifferent to my struggle to get to Freshwater Bay.

  Freshwater Bay was wide, shallow and still. The currents running south along the coast didn’t venture this far, it was sheltered and a good place to look for a camp. One of the best ways of finding a good camp spot is to look for signs—not broken twigs or moss on the side of a tree type of signs, but the kind of signs that direct traffic in town. Australia is very active with its signs on the beach. Sometimes the list of things the sign says you can’t do is so long it takes two signs to fit them all on. It would be easier to list the things you are able to do. Anyway, the upside was that the best camp spots were usually marked with a ‘No Camping’ sign which was easy to see from the ocean. In a remote military zone the next best sign to be found was a yellow ‘Warning: Don’t Swim—Crocodiles’ sign, thoughtfully translated into German for some reason. At Freshwater Bay I found a sign which led to a deserted camp hut with a table, chairs, water tank and no crocs or Germans—bingo!

  On 18 February I paddled the 65 kilometres from Freshwater Bay to Cape Townshend in six hours, with a little help from the current and wind. Cape Townshend looked out across Broad Sound and Leicester Island. I was brought up near a town called Leicester, which is 100 miles north of London just off the M1; it seemed strange to find an island with the same name overgrown with tropical flora and fringed with beaches and long-aged rocks baking in the sun of the east coast of Australia.

  From Cape Townshend I had to cross Broad Sound. This was where the currents were strongest, running over shoals and round islands at speeds faster than I could paddle an empty kayak on a good day. I set off the next morning for Marble Island, 40 kilometres into the sound, and all was going well—except that I was heading in the wrong direction.

  I normally put the bulk of my food in the front hatch, then as it got eaten I would balance the kayak by replacing it with kit that usually goes in the back. It was important to make sure the kayak was not too heavy in the front or back as uneven weight distribution affects the handling. This time I’d put my radio in the front hatch under the compass. It didn’t occur to me at the time but the metal in the radio subtly adjusted the compass by 15 degrees. So there I was paddling off with determination and purpose into a very complicated stretch of water, made worse by the last of the flood tide, unknowingly going the wrong way—a great start to the day. I realised things weren’t right when I drifted past a small island that should have been a kilometre away. I pulled out my GPS and with rather less determination and purpose started to make up the ground I’d lost.

  I got close to Marble Island in good time with no further mishaps until the tide changed and picked up strength, pushing large amounts of water around the island. At first the tide change was barely noticeable—I was paddling along thinking I was making for the island and wondering if there was fresh water and what I’d be eating that night. Then all of a sudden I woke from my daydream and realised I’d been in the same spot for fifteen minutes. The currents soon developed before my eyes and ripped up the sea, the water turned nasty and it was like paddling against a strong river. I looked all around me for a way out, but the whitecaps had completely surrounded me. I started trying to head for the shore, thinking the current would be less near the island, but it got stronger. Then I tried heading away from the island but the current got rougher over sandbars and rips. In the end I just plugged into it and over an hour later, after paddling as hard as I could, I reached calm waters and almost threw up as a result of the effort I’d had to put in.

  I had timed my crossing of the area on the east coast with the greatest tidal movement at the time of year when it had its highest tides. Every 14 days the moon lines up with the sun to increase the gravitational pull on the oceans. This makes the seas slop from one
side of the world to the other with a bit more vigour. But twice a year due to both the sun and moon being a bit closer to the Earth than usual, their combined gravitational strength creates king tides. This happens in early January, creating the strongest currents as the seas try and balance. It wasn’t the best time for a kayak trip in this area, but what could I do—wait two weeks for better conditions or just get on with it? If you were making plans to paddle this area you’d pick a better time of year, smaller tide range and perhaps a different direction, planning to make the currents and winds work for you, but I had a bigger picture to deal with.

  The next day, after a bit of time at Marble Island spent waiting for the tide to come in, I set off for Curlew Island. It was a very hot, still day, which meant the seas were calm but the effect of the heat was doubled as it rebounded off the flat ocean with a strength that really took it out of me and made paddling hard work. Then, after a full day on the water, I almost got swept past Curlew Island by the currents. It was sapping at the end of a baking hot day to paddle against the current for an hour, but it had to be done otherwise I would’ve been swept out to the open ocean. At one point when I was in relatively weak water I stopped paddling and my GPS showed me moving sideways at 4 knots. I can’t tell you how strong the current was at its worst, when the water was squeezed passed a rock or island, as it was all hands to the paddle. I would have lost too much ground reading the GPS. I had to put in a lot of extra effort to make it to the beach on the north side but was rewarded with a great campsite.

  From Curlew Island I made the mainland at Grasstree Beach just as a change in the weather brought a 30-knot southerly and storms which thankfully held off until I got out of their way. I was whacked and didn’t care where I slept. I found a house that looked empty and set up camp under their porch, hoping the owners didn’t turn up. It had been a challenging stretch from Seventeen Seventy and I was feeling drained from the effort, but it was one of the more memorable sections of the east coast due to the currents and remoteness. With the glow of achievement that comes from getting through a challenge, I fell asleep.