All the Way Round (17 page)

We couldn’t reverse the climb; we were committed and had no choice but to continue. I was covered in carabiners, ice screws and other stuff designed to save me from a fall, as well as an ice axe in both hands and crampons on my feet. That was enough to make me a target for the lightning as it searched for a place to go. I can’t remember too much but my climbing partner says when I was hit the first time he saw me fall face-first into the snow and stop moving for a few minutes. Then I regained consciousness and we continued the climb.

The second lightning strike a few minutes later hit me on a steeper section, leaving me unconscious and hanging off my ice-axe straps for so long that my partner untied himself from the rope. I’m not sure if that was so he could come to my aid or save himself. I had not placed any protection between us so if I fell I would have dragged him down with me to a messy end in the gully. Luckily I woke up again and we carried on.

The climb turned into a bit of an epic and we had to do some desperate stuff to get down the other side of the mountain in a snowstorm left behind by the lightning. With zero visibility and freezing conditions we had to make a complicated descent to the glacier below, then negotiate the crevasses to safety. After that experience my partner informed me he was giving up climbing, he had to think of his family. I didn’t give up climbing but I never liked lightning again.

Motivated by my memories of lightning strikes, I kept paddling hard into the East Australian Current. Thankfully, the storm drifted off further out to sea and the current exhausted itself as I passed the headland and landed at Scotts Head.

It’s hard not to attract a bit of attention when you arrive by kayak and then ferry your belongings to your allotted campsite, park the kayak and put your little tent up among four-wheel-drives and tents that are bigger than most people’s garages. I really don’t mind the attention; sometimes I’m even a bit disappointed when I don’t get asked questions about what I’m doing. Especially when I’ve been out on the water for a few days with nobody to talk to, being surrounded by curious holiday-makers is a bit of a tonic. However, sometimes when I land I can be a bit weary, and then I tend to skip some of the social niceties expected when first meeting people.

At Scotts Head I found a caravan park to stay in and as I carted my gear to my campsite a guy watching on the beach asked questions as I passed by. He was too far away for me to answer him properly, so I had to deviate across the sand to where he sat, obviously very comfy with a beer in one hand, a book in the other and an entourage of various friends and relatives scattered around in similar poses. After having to walk over a couple of times to give him an answer, I started to get irritated by the fact that I had to make an extra effort to talk to him while he sat there. As I said, when I’m tired I’m not at my most diplomatic, so when he asked me another brainless question on my way back to pick up the kayak, I went up to him and snapped, ‘You can get off your arse and ask your questions while helping me carry the kayak.’ I don’t think he was used to being told what to do, but I got the result I was after, with no further questions.

In contrast my neighbour at the caravan park, who was camped just one pace away and was also very interested in my trip, asked well-considered questions until I mentioned I needed to cook but would come back and chat more while I ate. He would have none of it and insisted on cooking for me, passing me beers as he did. Next morning he got up early and helped me carry my stuff and pressed ․50 into my hand as I packed the kayak.

After his interest and kind gift I was buoyed by the feeling he was genuinely impressed with my progress and my thoughts drifted back to some of the places I’d been and some of the things I’d done so far. I realised, perhaps for the first time, that I’d achieved a great deal just getting this far. But I couldn’t acknowledge the feeling of a job well done yet, because I still had so far to go.

On Friday 21 January I paddled into Coffs Harbour, over halfway between Sydney and Brisbane. Vicky McAuley had arranged for me to stay with her sister and family who lived there. All I had to do was drop the kayak off at the surf club and walk to their house.

Vicky is the wife of Andrew McAuley, who in 2007 paddled a sea kayak from Tasmania to within sight of New Zealand, but was lost at sea only one day’s paddle from landing on the South Island. He had sent a distress signal two days before he was due to land, and was not heard from again. It was tragic for his family and all who were gathered to welcome him at Milford Sound. A book by Vicky titled
Solo
, and a documentary
Solo: Lost at Sea
, were produced to tell the full story.

I paddled with Andrew and Lawrence Geoghegan in 2006 from the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula to the Antarctic Circle. For me Andrew was an adventurer’s adventurer. He organised the trip to Antarctica, which was on time and on budget, and was fun to be part of. Although we didn’t get as far as we planned, due to pack ice blocking our way, every other aspect of the trip was a success and as far as I know we paddled kayaks further south than anyone else had been. We took some film which was worked on by Justine Curgenven and featured on her popular kayaking DVD,
This is the Sea 3
. Like me, Andrew had a young family, a mortgage and a regular office job and always had to balance the money and family life with adventures. In spite of all these day-to-day issues, he achieved a great deal and was a major influence in my decision to kayak around Australia. Just before his trip to New Zealand I told him of my plans and he gave me a motivational speech that I remember to this day: ‘Well, I suppose you stand as much chance as anyone.’ If that’s not enough to get your blood going, I don’t know what is. He was a rare person whose achievements were his qualifications.

After arranging with the surf club to keep the kayak in their shed overnight, I rang Vicky’s sister Robyn and got directions to their house. I was met by Robyn’s husband, Mark, who had no idea who I was or that I was intending to stay the night, but was welcoming nonetheless, just assuming I was another ‘blow in’ to their very open house.

When I met Robyn I was surprised the conversation didn’t touch on how or why I had arrived and I was quite relieved to talk about subjects other than my trip. The house was full of paddles, outriggers and very fit-looking people so I just assumed that to relatives of Andrew McAuley paddling around Australia was really not a big deal. But at some point it was discovered that I’d arrived by kayak and had walked up from the surf club because I didn’t have a car. Then I mentioned I’d started from Broome and was on my way back to Broome. Robyn explained that Vicky had just left a quick message to let them know I would be popping by and hadn’t mentioned I was paddling the entire coastline. After that the main subject of conversation was my journey.

Next morning everybody in the house was on the water before I was out of bed, which made a bit of a change. I had a slow start with a big breakfast at a café before I made my way back down to the harbour, arriving just as a very active group of local outriggers and kayakers were coming back in from their training paddles. I was introduced to, and congratulated by, a bunch of motivated, fit and accomplished paddlers who could appreciate many aspects of the continued physical effort my endeavours had so far required. For a few minutes I was the main attraction, a bit of a turnaround after arriving as a nondescript backpacker bumming a bed for the night.

While I was in Sydney I had replaced my little happy-snap camera. I got used to the new one by playing around with the settings while taking photos of the kids at Christmas. Unfortunately it wasn’t until I managed to borrow Robyn’s computer to make backups of my shots that I realised I’d paddled all the way from Sydney taking photos with the camera settings fixed on close-ups. This left me with a few weeks of very average, out-of-focus photos to record the leg from Sydney to Coffs Harbour. As I mentioned earlier, my photography preparation for this trip was somewhat lacking.

From Coffs I’d noticed a change in the wildlife and vegetation as the climate started to get more tropical. Different, unfamiliar bird sounds during the day were replaced at night by new and exciting calls, buzzing, rasping and croaking. The bushes tumbled down towards the beach in competition with the trees to be first to snatch the sunlight beating on the sands. I also had a new critter to contend with in the water—the infamous bluebottle.

Bluebottles are venomous jellyfish that can be found in great numbers in the ocean and washed up on beaches in this area of the east coast. They can give you quite a nasty sting. It’s easy to innocently flick one up with a paddle stroke, taking it from its natural, docile state of floating about minding its own business, to an aggressive, airborne attacker intent on doing harm. Of course Mr Bluebottle has no bloody idea how it got airborne, or why he’s now draped over your hat causing so much panic. For the paddler, getting a bluebottle back into the ocean is not really as much of a priority as getting it off the paddler. The tentacles are quite sticky and if you try and pick them off you just get stung on your hand. To flick them off with a knife just puts holes in your clothing or skin, and to try and wash them off invites other bluebottles to sting you, so it’s best to avoid them in the first place if at all possible.

I’m not sure what a group of bluebottles is called but I’ll go for a ‘swarm’, which conjures up the image of a highly mobile attacking force. One or two stings are as painful as a bee sting, but on a previous trip I had paddled at night through a bluebottle swarm and ended up with multiple stings. I’m not sure how many times I got stung but it was enough to make me sick, not to mention the excruciating pain. I felt my balance was going and I started feeling dizzy so I headed to shore. I changed into dry clothes and noticed the glands in my groin area had swollen as they tried to deal with the stings. One or two bluebottles are inconvenient but many can mess up your day.

When looking for a place to camp where the surf or other obstacles allowed for choice, I’d spend a good amount of time and energy looking for the most basic of facilities that normally are taken as a given. As I moved north things got a bit warmer and a seat in the shade—preferably a bench with a table under a roof—was considered a luxury. I’d had more than a few evenings squatting on the sand, which I didn’t mind but compared to sitting upright in some sort of chair, in the shade, there was no contest. It meant relief for my back, there wasn’t as much sand in my dinner and after being in the sun all day the shade meant I wasn’t sweating while eating pasta in 30-degree heat.

On the east coast section I’d found 50 kilometres a day was a good distance for me to paddle. I could do more but that meant longer days on the water, a rush to get my evening tasks done and less time to recover. So 50 kilometres was a good enough distance for me to be pleased with the day’s progress while allowing me a bit of a life at the end of the day with enough recovery time to feel refreshed in the morning. There were plenty of sections throughout the trip where I had to paddle 60 or 70 kilometres for days at a time as I had to get to the next drinking water. These days were particularly wearing. But as long as I could stay on full rations and not have to cut my drinking water, I could keep it up; when I had to reduce the food and water intake to less than my body required, things quickly got harder.

During these tough times it was only because I mechanically kept to my routine without focusing on how much I ached, or how fuzzy my thinking was, that I kept going. To keep paddling day after day, each morning I just did exactly what I had done the previous morning, without considering the alternatives. It was only when I reached the next oasis, where all I had to do was hand over money for food and take water from taps, that I could relax. I had the opportunity during these stops to call it quits and get on a plane but the thought never seriously entered my head. As I was approaching Adelaide I did ask myself if I would consider quitting and flying home. I had just crossed the Bight and felt I’d accomplished a great deal, so would have not considered my trip a complete failure. Even so there was no chance I’d quit; there was much more to see and I didn’t want to miss any of it.

This ability to keep going could be described as the drive and sacrifice that is necessary to achieve your goals. It could also be seen as desperately getting out of some masochistic situation which you are solely responsible for putting yourself into and as such you deserve no sympathy or credit for getting out of.

I got to Lennox Head on 25 January after crawling round the corner from Ballina into a headwind which was strong enough to give me a good excuse for a rest day on the 26th. I found a youth hostel just off the beach and after getting over the initial worry of being the oldest person staying there, I made myself at home. I think by this time I may have been out on the water a bit too long: I sat in the shade in a reclining chair with a table next to me with a cold glass of water on it and laughed to myself at the decadence of it all.

Having made the decision not to plug into the headwind the next day, I could relax completely. I’d calculated I was going to reach Brisbane by early February, which was when I’d arranged to give a presentation to the Queensland Sea Kayak Club (QSKC), and from there I could make Townsville by early March to meet my brother, who was flying over from England. I wasn’t too worried about the current headwinds as I knew from Brisbane they would be replaced by tailwinds and I’d be able to use my sail to make up any lost time.

All was going to plan, and if it wasn’t I’d just change the plan.

On Australia Day 2011, I was resting up at Lennox Head while Jessica Watson was awarded Young Australian of the Year for being the youngest person to sail solo around the world. When Jessica began her voyage from Brisbane she was clobbered by a ship on the first day and was forced to return. Many lined up to air their views that this proved Jessica was too young and inexperienced and to generally bag the whole trip. Knowing what it takes to get as far as the starting line, and also having had a bad first day, I sympathised with Jessica and knew she would be under a lot of pressure from then on. While still being criticised in the media, Jessica started again. Sailing out of Sydney with all the distractions that come with a highly publicised trip, it must have been a huge relief to get going.