Kayak Trip to the Whitsunday Islands
I liked the Queensland Sea Kayak Clubs facebook page. This is how I first heard of the trip. It was later advertised on the Queensland
Canoeing web site. I made enquiries by
email and said I was a definite starter.
After this I realised that the trip went two days into the school semester;
after saying I would not go unless I could come home early, the university had
not found me a place for my practical teaching in the course I was doing, so
after this confusing start, I went on the trip full term. I was terribly worried a few days before the
trip started: would I be able to keep up, what are they going to say about my
home-built wooden kayak, I did not have a rudder therefore will the boat be
able to keep the same direction as others, ten days is the longest I have ever
gone on a camping trip away from civilisation, I do not have a change of
clothes for every day. These things all
troubled me. When I drove to the meeting
place at an Airlie Beach caravan park they did not really mind my kayak. The guide, John, had no idea of anything
about me and had not seen me before, and wanted a private chat. I was a little worried about this, which must
have shown on my face, because John gave me a man-hug and said ‘welcome
buddy’. He basically wanted to know
about my level of paddling and if I had anything medical he needed to know
about. My paddling skill was something
he needed to know about because the first day was the worst seas I have ever
been in paddling a kayak. Firstly, we
caught a fast barge, the ‘Scamper’, to Henning Island – South West of
Whitsunday Island. We then paddled
around the Southern part of the Island until we reached Whitehaven Beach. There were some waves I was sure my kayak was
pointing straight to the sky when I hit them head-on! I did not need to worry about my kayak: it
handled very well and kept the same direction as the other kayaks despite my
lacking a rudder. The pace was incredibly slow. I did not realise what was happening behind
me: some of our kayakers were sea-sick and having trouble paddling. I think one of them had to be towed the last
part. After a few hours, negotiating
some very bad seas, we finally all made it to Whitehaven Beach – and what a
wonderful site it was. One of the
kayakers, Alex, reached the beach and lied face down at the water edge. I did not know he was sea-sick at the time
and slapped him on the bottom when running past him to help lift a kayak out of
the water. With all the kayaks up I
wasted no time and pitched my tent and inflated my air mattress. Others were a little slow at doing this and
the rain caught them. I kept to myself
and was reading my novel laying on my bed while it was raining. I went for a walk around the camp sites after
the rain had stopped and saw Jon. He had
said that he would pitch next to me in the prime beach-front real-estate where
I put my tent. I had to tell several of
our group that they could not pitch next to me because Jon had that spot. Jon wanted to be with his friend Graham whom
he had car-travelled with from Brisbane region.
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| Graham, Tony, Me, Wayne, John (tour guide), Martin, Pierre, Sergey, Caitlin (standing), my tent in picture. |
The next day we went in our kayaks for a short paddle to a
snorkelling site. It was off Chalkies
beach. We first paddled all the way up
to the north-eastern tip of the neighbouring island. Nicolson Island, and found
the first spot unsuitable for snorkelling.
We then made our way to Chalkies beach which was about mid part of the
North face of Nicolson Island. The
snorkelling here was reasonably nice considering where we were and that it was
not really at the Barrier Reef proper.
There were (what I call) soft corals and very few reef fish. Wayne and I stuck together (buddied up) while
snorkelling and we stuck up a friendship on the trip. On the way back to Whitehaven Beach in the
kayaks some strange looking currents were evident on the water surface. Graham paddled right into one of the affected
areas and deliberately rolled, although I did not actually see the roll. We ferry-glided across the North end of the passage,
between the islands, and found that the current was causing an eddy at the end
of the passage-way between the islands -- against Whitsunday Island. We had to reverse our ferry glide direction
to compensate; sounds confusing but the way the water currents were going it
was equally confusing in real life. I
did not wear a spray skirt on this trip and was a little worried what the
others may think of it. I hardly ever
wear a spray skirt when on my own. We
were supposed to also go on a hike that day but spent too long snorkelling to
be able to do so. Wayne, Jon, and I went
on a short walk to the lookout (Slopers Lookout?). Jon continued on with the bush-walk all of us
were to take, which I thought foolhardy because the short time left until
sunset. Jon managed the trip, however,
and was back in camp just at the end of twilight; he said he jogged most of the
way.
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| View from lookout near campsites. I think it is called Soles lookout. View accross Whitsunday Island to Nicolson Island. |
Well, that night, I am not too sure what happened to
me. I was having a few casual wines with
everyone at my tent, because my site had a table and was beachfront, when a
lady who had befriended our group came over.
I thought I was doing alright with this lady and had a few more wines. I became so drunk that I fell over my tent
and could barely stand up. Jon looked
after me and I woke up in my tent early in the morning sober. I noticed that over a litre of my wine supply
was gone and I must have consumed this in a short time. John, the tour guide, spoke to me a little
seriously and said he hoped that I would not repeat that behaviour as I fell on
the tent and apparently flattened it.
The tent survived the treatment okay but John was worried I would break
gear so early in the trip. Wayne came
down to the water front and said out loud ‘was it your birthday last night’. Wayne was full of these jokes and in some way
defended me on the trip. When Martin
said did I have a wind-cheater and I said no, Wayne said ‘he is like Sponge Bob
and Square Pants – he’s got a garbage bag with some arm holes in it’. Funnily enough, I did have a couple of
plastic garbage bags that I could put to the task. I had no idea I would need a wind-cheater and
survived the trip quite happily without one. I had a conversation to John, the tour-guide,
about my nervousness regard not having a change of clothes every day. He said ‘neither do I’. Wayne again chipped in with a one liner:
‘Didn’t you read the notes? There is a change of jocks on Thursday!’; So ended most of the worries I had about the
trip. I needed now to regulate my food
and water to ensure they lasted. We only
spent two nights on Whitehaven Beach as it is a very popular spot and John, the
tour guide, could only get bookings for two days. We broke camp at Whitehaven Beach and paddled
toward our second camp site, Cairn Beach, via Hill Inlet.
Hill Inlet is a very picturesque area. We paddled down the inlet as far as we could
with the low tide, this was not very far compared to the length of the
inlet. We came back to the mouth and
intended to go on the walk up to the lookout.
I was terribly worried about my kayak because the tide was coming in and
I could not beach it where we were: the whole area was going to go under in the
high tide. There was a large tree stump
on the sand bar and, not being too fussy about my kayaks hull, I dragged it,
loaded, over the sand to the stump and tied it off. The others with plastic boats did the same. Those with fiberglass boats were not game to
do it in case they abraded their hulls, and did not come on the walk; at least
I don’t think so as Graham had volunteered to stay with the boats. The view from the lookout was fantastic and
here is a photo of it taken off a video (therefore low quality photo). I was right about the tide and our boats were
floating when we made our way back to them.
Hill inlet had sting rays in it and we noticed a few of them when paddling
away in the shallow water.
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| Me at Hill Lookout . This is the entrance to Hill Inlet. |
The remainder of our paddle that day was to get to Cairn
Beach. We paddled all the way up the
Western side of the island, past a few of the extruding points on Whitsunday
Island. It was somewhere on this second
part of the paddle, around Apostle Bay,
off Whitsunday Island, that we saw a whale breach right amongst the
kayaks. The others said it was a Minke
Whale; it was black and had a bent-over dorsal fin. I have never experienced anything like this
before. It was closer to other kayaks
than mine and those closest to it must have been worried it would tip them
out. Sergey, the Russian, made a very
loud noise when it first breached as I think it did it twice amongst us – we
were spread over a long distance, say one hundred meters. Before its breaching amongst us, we could see
it blowing in the distance. When near
the end of our paddle we had a narrow passage to pass through between the
Islands. It was perhaps a few hundred
meters wide but the tide rushed through it.
We timed the voyage so that we would get to the passage at ebb-tide; in
this way the flow would be minimal.
After safely navigating the passage it was a job to find the camp sites:
which we successfully did. The beach had
a few head-sized boulders around the waterline and was rocky in the tidal zone
at low tide. Wayne, Tony, and I shared
an alcove of a campsite; the others went into the other alcoves.
It was in this campsite that I discovered what an artist
Graham was. Graham was a quiet man but a
very good kayaker (as previously mentioned, he deliberately rolled in a
current). He shows his difference to other
paddlers by having an Aleutian paddle he made himself out of a piece of wood. Although a thin paddle, Graham has no trouble
keeping up with the group. When we went
on the Cairn walk, which I will talk about shortly, Graham stayed at the
campsite and used a felt-pen to do some art-work on some turtle shell-bones he
found on the beach – it was very nice. A
cuttle-fish bone was also found and Graham carved a nude lady in the soft part
of the bone and the result was very beautiful.
Of course, strictly speaking, we are not allowed to interfere with
anything in the National Park, but I am sure the Rangers would not be
concerned.
We
walked from the campsite up the Cairn Lookout trail. This was steep in places and was, until then,
the longest two and a half kilometres I had done. It must have been two and a half as the crow
flies because the ground distance was certainly longer. The Cairn was a very beautiful stone and the
view from the lookout was also very nice.
John had a Grass Tree fruiting body and kidded around it was a spear. Martin fed me while we were up there as I
thought the trip would be short and we would be back before lunch.
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| The Cairn, Whitsunday Island. |
As I remember, we were at the Cairn Beach campsite for two
nights and then headed for Maureen’s Cove, Hook Island. We had to break camp and be ready to paddle
at a certain time. I think it was about
9:30 A.M., a gentlemanly hour, so we could get the ebb tide back through the
passage. The wind on this day was about
twenty knots and although the tour guide made sure we had the best conditions
regarding the tide, the current and wind caused reflected waves off of Hook
Island. I must admit I did not enjoy
these confused seas very much. The
whistle blew meaning for us to maintain our positions and the cause was that
Alex had capsized. We got going again
and the lead man of our pod of kayaks, Jon, was heading out to seaward of the
next point, the Pinnacles; he was doing this to distance the group from the
reflected waves off this point; I also headed seaward. A wave actually broke over
the top of my kayak – I leaned into the wave and had my paddle ready to
brace. Soon afterward, my spray skirt
came loose and the others were very concerned about this. The whistle had sounded a second time and the
cause was that Alex had capsized again. I
put my paddle down on the water and tried to fix my spray-skirt. The paddle (as I was aware from other
occasions I have done this) was becoming a sea anchor and I was worried it
would go under the kayak and cause the paddle-leash to tip me out. I picked up the paddle without fixing the
skirt and was again ready to brace if needed – this seemed more important to me
that getting some water in my cockpit. Graham, a very good paddler, came over to me
and offered to raft-up so that I could fix the spray-skirt. I declined somewhat grumpily and said I just
wanted to get out of this shit. Some of
us had continued on past the near-by pinnacles while Alex was being rescued and
so I continued to paddle with Graham. We
successfully navigated around the Pinnacles where it was protected from the
wind and waves. Graham, the hero of the
day, went back into the rough seas and helped with the rescue. What happened in the rescue is hearsay to me,
but Alex had trouble getting back into the kayak; he mounted the rear deck of
his kayak while rafted up with Graham and was towed around the Pinnacles by
John (the tour guide) and Martin. We
were programed to take a break at this point but we spent too much time
navigating the stretch of water and had to be at Maureen’s Cove in time for the
barge at 3:30 P.M.; the area had shallow reefs which also detracted us from
landing. The barge, the “Scamper”, was
doing a water-drop for us and we needed to meet it when it beached at Maureen’s
Cove. Heather, one of our group, was
also going back to the mainland, with her kayak, on the Scamper. We continued on and made Maureen’s Cove in
plenty of time.
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| The Pinnacles, Alex's boat being T drained. |
