Day 1
We left heading into strong westerly wind and kept to the left of the passage where water was shallow but more sheltered than through the deeper channel. Pulling our kayaks over some of the bigger and shallower sand bars at times, on the way Laurie continually showed me where distinguishing land marks were and good places to camp. We stopped briefly on the beach at the heads of Welcome Inlet and then paddled in deeper water to Woolnorth point where we had lunch by a barge the abalone divers in the region use.
    Ashore on Woolnorth Point
After lunch Laurie decided we would not to go out to Trefoil Island because of the winds and large swell being pushed up from the southwest, instead we paddled across Hunter Passage and sailed up the eastern side of Hunter Island. I was having trouble with my sail and it was making my boat feel quite unstable, I was unable to keep up with Laurie.
   Dean under sail
We landed at Cave Bay and walked up to the Homestead. Laurie gave me a brief history lesson about the island as we walked up. No one was about and by the looks hadn’t for some time, so we walked back to the beach and paddled up to Shepherds Bay and set up camp in a very sheltered location. Walking in we did a bit of house keeping to the track, it had grown over quite a lot. Keeping with tradition we lit a small fire, it kept my mind off the fact I was being eaten by mosquitoes and sand flies.

Day2
Waking up early the wind and swell had increased and swung around to the Northwest, we set out heading for the homestead on Three Hummock Island - it was only 5 odd km Northeast from Shepherds Bay.
Leaving Shepherds Bay
I was still having trouble with my sail and feeling unstable, Laurie gave me a few pointers about sail position which helped but my sail cord keep coming uncleated, I took it down half way across. We landed on Three Hummock less than an hour later, got changed in an old shed at the jetty and walked up to the homestead.
Gavin, who was the caretaker on the island for a month, got quite a shock when we came striding up beside the original homestead he and his partner were staying in. They came out and invited us in for a cuppa. We left them a little while later to have breakfast and walked over to the 5 sister’s beach to have a look at the conditions and walked up to the end of the beach and back. On arriving back at the homestead Gavin and his partner came and checked out our kayaks Gavin seemed interested in getting one, a couple of days before we arrived they had paddled around Three Hummock in a Roaring Forties double with some old friends of Laurie’s. Getting back to the kayaks we did some work on my kayak. Apparently I had installed my cleats on the wrong sides and at an angle too parallel to the cockpit.
Dean altering the cleats on his Mirage.
Laurie improvised and set up a rope for my sail cord to go through and keep it in my now correct sided cleats. After changing back into our wet gear we headed off for East Telegraph Beach via the southern side of the Island. Laurie quickly set up sail as we now had a tail wind, I followed suit and with the prior coaching and better rig I was having a ball sailing and riding the swell. I was having too much fun to stop and find where the fresh water beach was. An hour and a half later we came into a small bay where a yacht was anchored, it had been on the other end of Shepherds Bay to where we had camped the night before. We paddled over to it and Laurie rattled on the hull to see if anyone was about, the owner came out and had a brief chat, he had sailed up from Wynyard with his family over the Christmas break.
The coast on the SE corner of Three Hummock Island
We paddled for another half hour in to what was now a head wind on that side of the island and landed on East Telegraph Beach. We had a bite to eat, explored the dunes to find the 4wd track that leads to the aeroplane runway below South Hummock. We found an easier path back to the beach that had been marked by a large post at the foot of the dune. We set up camp on the beach well back up from the hide tide mark on the soft sand, it was decided that no pegs were going to hold our tents down in the sand so Laurie’s fly was used for shelter, tied off to a kayak either side and Laurie’s paddle as poles.
Our bivvy
We laid out our tents flat for groundsheets with thermarests on top with sleeping bags on top of that. I cooked up tea and Laurie had yet another egg and bacon pie, apparently he stopped at Richmond bakery and bought a cool half a dozen because I had threatened to bring eggs and bacon on the trip. After tea we walked up to the other end of the beach and found quite a few camp sites - some that had been recently used, too late to change camp now. We collected some drift wood on the way back and had another fire. Laurie took some photos of the cloud formations at sunset. it was quite spectacular.
Sunset over our camp on East Telegraph Beach

Panoramic of the beach
Later in the evening we could hear the fairy penguin chicks calling out, we went along to the south end of the beach where it met granite boulders, and watched the penguins sheepishly sneak ashore. We headed off to bed early again to be woken around about 1ish to some very busy penguins, it had become apparent we had set up camp right in the way of their track, we even had a visit from a possum that night.

 Day Three
 When daylight came, penguin tracks were in the sand all around our camp, their tracks were everywhere.
Penguin tracks
After having had breakfast we set out for South Hummock via the 4WD track across the airstrip and up the gravel track that telecom had created to get to their tower on top of South Hummock. On reaching the top we were greeted a 360degree panoramic view.
Admiring the view from the top of South Hummock
We could see the Doughboy’s Trefoil, Steep and Albatross Island’s as well as the closer islands and mainland. Walking back down the temperature had risen quite a bit and being use to the scrub and coastline around the North West region, this looked like good snake country - it didn’t take long before we saw our first copper head. Within 2km of leaving South hummock we had seen 3 copper heads and nearly trodden on one, Laurie and I were twinkle toeing around that one, all 18 inches of him. Walking back over the air field and back down the overgrown 4WD track I was getting a bit nervous understandably, we came across another copper head, they seemed to be getting bigger. About 2km from the beach we came across a rather large tiger snake basking in all his glory, I hadn’t seen a snake this large since working down at Waratah for the private forestry 15 years ago. He was very distinguishable from the other snakes - clear yellow stripes on his black back. After we both got a photo of him Laurie threw a stick in his direction and he rose up and went after it into the bush.
  Tiger snake
I don’t think he enjoyed our company and interruption of his sun baking; I wouldn’t like to come across him in mating season in February. One more copperhead later, this one was the first ever true copper head I had experienced out bush, not just the red belly, his head looked truly copper! The rest of the walk was in silence and keen eyes peeled. Arriving back to the beach by 11am and not much left to do for the day, we packed camp and set off for Walker Island. We headed into a head wind and a bit of chop; closing on Walker Island the conditions were better. Laurie had his sail up fairly early into the paddle, I waited a while longer thinking I would be dragged eastwards not realising the tidal current would negate this and is why I had an ark to thewest in my crossing. The crossing was another good learning curve for me, I kept reflecting on how it was good to be out there with someone as experienced and willing to teach me as Laurie is. Before reaching the Petrel Islands we saw the fishing boat Booran coming out from Smithton, the water was quite a nice aqua colour here, clearly a sandy bottom.
Cathedral Rock, Walker Island
We followed the east side of Walker Island to the heads between Robbins Island and Walker Island, which led into Mosquito Inlet and paddled against a fast flowing out-going current. A couple of men came around a big sweeping bend on a 4 wheel motorbike; they were staying in a new shack where we intended to put up camp. The men advised us that we could stay in a communal shack a bit further along the Inlet. Upon inspection we decided to put up camp behind some boobyallas at the end of the airfield. From where we had gotten out of our kayaks the rise and fall in the tide was huge, we had to carry our kayaks over 100 metres to the high tide mark, the tide was only a third of the way out.
Ashore in Mosquito Inlet
By the time the tide was fully out, looking west across to Stack Island, it was almost impossible to see water and the inlet was reduced to a 10 metre wide waist deep pond. Eating our tea on the beach by the kayaks we broke with tradition and had no fire and an early night. We were entertained by an electrical storm and all I could think was I’m glad I’m not under Laurie’s tent fly.
Tents near the end of the airstrip

Day 4
The next morning we were greeted by a nice clear day with hardly any wind to speak of. Laurie actually slept in as we could not leave until we had some water to paddle in. The people who were staying in the shack left in their 4WDs and we watched as they drove around the sand to the crossing to Robbins’s Island, we eventually paddled past this spot.
Waiting for the tide
We got into the water at about 10.30am with just enough water to paddle out of the inlet, making our way down the western side of Robbins’s Island. We were greeted by plenty of Swans; Laurie caught another one this time I posed with the Swan on my spray deck.
  A young swan
The next couple of hours we saw plenty of skate, stingrays and swans, we counted the wind turbines at Woolnorth quite a few times and we agreed that there is 37. We caught up to the 4WDs at Wallaby Island where we had a short walk across the shallows, they had missed the tide back across to Denium Hill. We were on the back straight now, we paddled into the gateway at Denium hill camp site at around 1.30pm.
The finish at Denium Hill
Some Locals had set up camp here now; after unpacking the kayaks and loading them onto our cars Laurie pulled out a nice warm can of draught and we celebrated a great trip, we had gotten back 2 days early because the forecast didn’t sound too good and the way the weather came in over the next couple of days it was a wise decision.