Scribe Laurie Ford
Toby Clark has a lot to answer for. He started the system of organising a weekend trip, then leading it from the warmth and comfort of his home - he’s done it a couple of times. Now Mick Verrier has caught the disease - he led the Southport Lagoon trip last year from Sunny Queensland, and now led the Bruny trip from home. Of course you can’t really blame him - it’s a choice of camping in the rain, paddling 30km a day with a bunch of blokes without being able to get out for a rest - OR spending some quality time at home with his gorgeous wife and lovely kids. Lucky fella.

That left Ian Johnson, Jamie Fergusson, Rick Boyle, Bob Bush, and me to get the 7.30pm ferry across to Bruny Island on Friday night. Bob had our 3 kayaks on already, and Ian took Jamie’s, leaving Jamie’s car near Roaring 40’s.

We arrived at Adventure Bay just as it was getting dark, and had a quick look around for somewhere to camp for the night. There were ‘No Camping’ signs, and ‘Day Use Only’ signs everywhere - except one good spot where a river has formed a bit of a lagoon before it flows across the beach. This looked ideal, so we unloaded the kayaks to pack as much as we could in them. The weather forecast was for light NE to SE winds all weekend - with rain and fog - so I changed Mick’s plan of starting in Great Taylors Bay. This turned out - quite by chance - to be a superb plan.
 

The local policeman caught us just as we were preparing to erect tents, and pointed out that there was no camping anywhere along the foreshore on the coastal reserve - as we well knew. I’d thought that if we set up camp after dark, and broke camp early in the morning, the locals wouldn’t realise we were there, so wouldn’t complain. The policeman seemed to concur, and was quite friendly and lenient - telling us there’d better not be anything left behind when we went. He then enquired where we were planning to go, and asked if we were carrying a radio. “No.” Were we carrying flares? “No, it’s club policy not to carry any emergency gear like that.”

“Which club is this - the foolhardy irresponsible canoe club?”

“Look, if we can paddle across to Victoria and back, we don’t need some little power boat to look after us.”

He laughed and left, and we settled down to a very warm night - being woken about 4.20am by some very heavy rain.

I chivvied Bob and Ian out early as they had to do the car shuffle to Great Taylors Bay, and I wanted to get on the water by 9.00am. Ian left his vehicle there, and Bob’s was to be left near the caravan park at Adventure Bay. On their return we launched into the river and floated down over the beach to the sea. The day was very warm, but heavily overcast - low cloud down to the water level quite often. We never saw the top of the cliffs the whole day. The wind was non existent, and the sea fairly calm - and we cruised along close to the shoreline all the way - well, most of us. This bit of coast all the way round to Cloudy Bay is GREAT, there are caves to look into, archways to paddle through, gulches between rocks and the shore to run through - fantastic. We took our time and Jamie and I went into every single one that it was possible to, Bob went into quite a few, while Rick and Ian stayed offshore a bit. Actually Ian stayed so far offshore at times we virtually lost sight of him as he paddled straight across one large bay - I can’t imagine anything more boring.

Of course we stopped to photograph THE blow hole in the Bay of Islands - the one that sucks spray off the water from a couple of metres away - into its gaping mouth - then explodes with a mind boggling sheet of spray 100 feet or more into the air. When you get in close to this you can hear the air and spray being violently sucked into the opening, then the swell rises and blocks off the entrance, builds up tremendous pressure inside, and then KABOOM - out it all comes with incredible violence.

As we played in the archways and gulches, it slowed the party down, and made it easy for anybody feeling a bit tired to rest up now and then. Usually when people paddle straight across from one point of a bay, to the next point, without following the shoreline - it indicates tiredness. Although sometimes with newer paddlers it is just an unwillingness to get too close to the breaking swells because of a lack of skills and confidence. But we all felt like that when we started out, and the only way to get experience is to have a go at a few likely looking ones. It is just so much fun, interacting with the shoreline - and really this is what sea canoeing is all about in my opinion. And I’ll quote from one of my Emails (which I have quoted before):

This paddling style is not my cup of tea. I like to get in close - smell the oysters on the rocks as I'm rolling up and down past them on the swell and water dance my way down the coast. Lots of fun, lots to see - good practice. Point to point crossings have all the attraction of a bad head cold to me. Sometimes you get them, but mostly it is more fun to avoid them!

It must have been 8 hours after we started that we rounded the last point into Cloudy Corner, having had good conditions every inch of the way - the fog shrouded cliff-tops not taking anything away from a very pleasant paddle.

The National Parks service have very kindly installed a rack for drying life jackets on, and I decided to camp right next to it. We could see campers up in the proper campsite up the hill a bit, but I had just worked out that we needed an early start in the morning - so it was better to be right next to the kayaks.

My reasoning was such: I thought the last ferry was 5.30pm (This was Mick’s trip, and I didn’t have a time table). It would probably take Bob an hour to drive from Great Taylors Bay to the ferry - allow an hour and a half, which means leaving GTB at 4.00pm. Allow half an hour to load up the three kayaks and gear - Bob’s car needs to be at GTB by 3.30pm. Allow an hour and a half for the car shuffle - Ian needs to leave GTB by 2.00pm. Allow half an hour for he and Jamie to load up their kayaks and gear - we need to arrive at GTB no later than 1.30pm. It’s 30 km - possibly 5 hours, but allow six and a half for emergencies. Therefore we need to leave Cloudy Corner by 7.00am.

I gave the troops the good news about the early start. Ian decided he would pull out here, and paddle across to the mouth of Cloudy Lagoon and walk up to the road, and more than likely get a lift the 10km to GTB.

This was an opportunity for anyone else that may have been feeling a bit tired to pull out as well, and I half thought Rick may have. I wasn’t quite sure whether he was just taking his time on Saturday, or was feeling the pinch of possibly an unused to long period in his kayak. He didn’t pull out, and had absolutely no problem in covering the 30km round to GTB in 5 hours.

We left the campsite to head straight across Cloudy Bay to Point Grand - not being able to see more than half a km in front of us due to low fog - and naturally had to paddle on a compass bearing for 4km before we sighted the point. On the way across, in glassy conditions, we paddled up to a raft of mutton birds - we could estimate there were probably a few thousand we could see, and many more further away in the fog.

We cut across Mabel Bay on another compass course, although the fog was starting to lift slightly - we could probably see 1km now. We found a few gulches to paddle through down along the coast to West Cloudy Head, and then cut across Lighthouse Bay to Cape Bruny. I’d mentally divided the trip up into three roughly 10km sections, figuring we had to do each 10km in less than 2 hours to arrive on time. The lighthouse was actually about eleven and a half km, and we were in the bay underneath it in one and a half hours - way ahead of the required schedule. Not that we could see the lighthouse of course. We went ashore on the point near Courts Island for a 15 minute break - with the low cloud only about 100 feet above our heads.

From here on the water actually got calmer and calmer, and we just cruised along the rocky shore, disturbing the odd seal. There was nothing remarkable to see along here, and by 10.45am we were ashore on Butlers Beach, just past Partridge Island. I honestly hadn’t expected to be so far ahead of schedule, but after another 15 minute break we cruised the last remaining 6km to arrive almost at midday - with the day beginning to clear, and the very hot burning sun to shine.

Ian was there to meet us, and our car shuffle and return on the ferry went according to plan, except that we made the 4.30pm ferry instead.

This was far the best way to do this trip - you don’t want to be hurrying to get the ferry along the east side of South Bruny - this is the spectacular part and needs a full day to play. If weather conditions allow, always start at Adventure Bay - don’t finish there.

We had a GREAT weekend - well worth the long drive down from the NW.