All the Way Round (23 page)

I camped well away from the beach and washed my pots a good distance from where I intended to launch the next morning. Crocs watch and learn the habits of their prey, to give them the best chance of using the element of surprise and explosive power that has served them so well for thousands of years. If I returned to the spot where I had landed to wash my pots in the evening, then again after breakfast to clean them, my three visits to the same spot would allow a croc to predict where I might go next. Then, when I dragged the kayak down to the water and went back to get the bags to pack my stuff into the hatches, he’d be prepared and waiting for his chance. But if I went to different spots each time he had no common point to wait at. That’s the theory anyway!

Next morning I ate breakfast and packed the tent away, all the while keeping an eye on the water for a pair of eyes to pop up, and wondering how long they could stay underwater for. Was it two minutes, twenty minutes or two hours? I wasn’t sure what I’d do if the eyes did show. I couldn’t launch too far from where I camped because of the coral and I couldn’t outlast a patient croc as I didn’t have much spare water. With no sign of him, but also knowing stealth is what crocs have used to survive since the age of the dinosaur, I quickly pushed off and paddled fast, feeling better the further away from the island I got.

The 700 kilometres from Cooktown to Cape York felt like real crocodile territory. It was low-lying with plenty of river estuaries and mangroves, just the sort of country where they could be anywhere. Even paddling around the islands I felt insecure. Although an island doesn’t have the mangroves that lined parts of the mainland, I could only land on one side. The wind and currents had created a beach on the sheltered side but there were exposed reefs around the rest of the island. This gave me limited options for landing, and I like options.

As I approached Cape York I realised I’d almost finished the entire east coast of Australia. It had taken five months, but I’d given two presentations, spent four weeks with the family, paddled through the aftermath of a tsunami, a flood and a cyclone, and sat dumb and happy as the closest person to the epicentre of an earthquake. I’d spent the last three months paddling in the rain for six days of the week and had overcome a serious lack of motivation, but in a few days I would be turning left and starting to head west.

My last night on the east coast was spent in Albany Passage. I managed to time my struggle through the passage on the spring tides, the strongest tides of the month, and they were running against me at about 4–5 knots. As bad as that could have been, I found that the current was so strong that as it flowed around the rocks it sucked back on itself and I could use these back currents to get to a beach and the campground of Somerset Bay. I felt that completing the east coast was an achievement worth celebrating. I found some shelter from the rain, started a fire and did what I could to make dinner extra special. That was tricky as I was getting down to the basics in the larder but I made an effort and put the usual ingredients together in a different order. The result was the same, but it felt special.

The next day I worked the tides and made the small town of Seisia on 19 April. There are very strong currents around Cape York, and if you paddle against them then life is going to be very hard. By getting the currents right I managed to get a push out of Albany Passage as I admired the coastline. It would be a very interesting area to island-hop and explore but you would need a good understanding of the flow of water. The current helped me past Possession Island, which was a huge relief. I had sort of guessed that was the way the current would be going for me, but if I’d got it wrong then I would’ve been in for a real struggle because I would’ve had to work the slack water along the shore. Hugging the shore to keep out of the current would have put me close to any crocs lurking in the shallows, a most undesirable path. A few very large splashes behind the kayak kept me on my toes. I never saw what caused them but I kept telling myself,
It’s only turtles, only turtles . . .

Seisia is a friendly place with all I needed to clean up, do some repairs and rest for a day. It was also empty of tourists. The wet season floods the roads to Cape York for six months every year, and this means nobody can drive in or out of the huge area during that time. All supplies, mail and transport is by air or boat and the caravans don’t turn up until it stops raining. This was good for me as I had the place to myself, apart from a few very rare palm cockatoos and the locals, who were keen to talk to someone new.

It wasn’t long before Gary and Sara were alerted that I was in town by Etta and Dave, who run Coral Sea Kayaking at Mission Beach. They found me easily and gave me a quick tour of the town, followed by a dip in the local watering hole, before inviting me round for dinner. Although the town is surrounded by the clear, warm waters of the Arafura Sea, the watering hole is popular, being up the river where the crocs don’t go.

After leaving Seisia I would be tackling the Gulf of Carpentaria coastline. The main problem with the eastern side of the gulf is the winds. As I made my way up the east coast of Queensland, the trade winds blew from the southeast pushing me north. Now those same trade winds would be blowing towards me as I headed south towards Weipa and on to Karumba. Would the winds be strong enough to slow my progress to the extent that I would take too long and run out of water? That was my main worry, but I also didn’t know how easy it would be finding safe landing spots, where the crocs would leave me alone, among the mud flats and mangroves.

But there was only one way to find out, so I set off on 21 April. I’d been warned Crab Island is not a good place to linger due to the big lizards that eat the turtles nesting there. But nobody told me of the 25-knot squall and blinding rain I would encounter while trying to negotiate the maze of sandbars exposed by the outgoing tide.

I wasn’t off to a good start, and the day almost didn’t end well either when a croc came to say hello as I headed in for a landing at Vrilya Point. It was a bit of a weak effort from a small 2-metre croc. He didn’t come closer than 30 metres, but even so I forced another kilometre out of my arms before ducking in to the beach a respectable distance from the resident. It was a nice sandy beach, and I reached it during high tide so I didn’t have a long carry to the campsite. The wind hadn’t been too much of an issue, apart from the squall, and it stopped raining long enough for me to set up camp and cook dinner. My fears evaporated.

It is always the same: I would expect the worst, and the challenge would become more daunting the longer I left it. But when I got stuck in my fears would disappear and I would do what I needed to do to make progress.

A couple of days later I was at Turtle Creek, south of Mapoon. I had tried to get to the town of Mapoon but the fight against the current coming out of Port Musgrave was too much and I got swept past Cullen Point. I was getting through 5 litres of water a day in this area, which was a litre a day less than the section heading north from Cooktown. It was still just as hot, but the higher humidity on the east coast had probably made me work harder. Whatever the reason, I was grateful for the extra water. That extra litre a day may not sound much but it meant after five days I had an extra day’s supply of water.

I didn’t go far up Turtle Creek as the current was running out. I spied a camp spot just inside the entrance, which was great because the further up the rivers you go the more likely you are to come across those snapping handbags. I could see the buildings of an Indigenous camp not far away so I went looking for drinking water. It was unusual for someone to turn up at the camp without a four-wheel-drive or motorboat and after a quick explanation of what I was about I was invited to stay in one of their permanent tents and have lunch. With dark clouds gathering and bolts of lightning nearby, I didn’t need to be asked twice.

The creek was full of movement as night approached and a 3-foot-high wire fence around the camp didn’t need any explanation. The approaching storm and evening light gave the creek a menacing feel, which was justified by the splashes and swirls of disturbance made by the unseen food chain at work.

My hosts made me feel right at home. I was soon entertaining the kids with my digital camera, which they quickly got the hang of, amusing themselves and upsetting the old men by taking their photos. We swapped stories and sucked some beer. All the drinking water had to be brought in via the road and I noticed that, although they could only spare 2 litres of water, all the men drank beer and smoked nonstop, from the time I arrived to well after I went to bed. I guess any excess water had to make way for the essentials on the truck drive from Mapoon.

It was a good night and I had a ball. My respect for their traditional skills escalated when one of the men—who could hardly walk after a long afternoon on the grog—jumped up, grabbed a spear and vaulted over the fence. I made a mental note of where my first aid kit was just as he jumped back over the fence with a huge mud crab on the end of his spear. Stone-cold sober I couldn’t have managed it. He dropped the crab on the ground for the women to deal with, his part being done. He then sat down only to promptly fall backwards off the chair, to peals of laughter all round.

I struggled to get to Weipa on Anzac Day. As I turned into Albatross Bay the wind showed itself and hampered my progress. Blowing at 20 knots it slowed me down, but I had to give it a big effort as I had only 2 litres of water left. Seeing my desperation the wind called on its mate, the current, to join in the fight to stop me reaching Weipa. Between them my progress was painful; it took six hours to paddle the last 30 kilometres to reach land. When I found the Weipa campsite I was feeling dehydrated, my drinking water had run out hours before, but I still had to ferry my kit and the kayak across 500 metres of mud flats to the sand. It was dead low tide. I’d just paddled the entire six hours it takes for the tide to run out of Albatross Bay before it turns around and spends the next six hours filling it up again. My timing couldn’t have been any worse and I’d paid the price. It was a difficult paddle but after weeks of paddling 50 kilometres a day I was running on empty, and compounded by having to ration supplies and water, it hit me hard.

I needed a rest but I kept moving, set up the tent, grabbed a shower, organised some laundry and then went out for a meal, only just making it back to the tent to fall onto my mat, letting exhaustion do its stuff. I spent two days at Weipa, which were badly needed. But after the first day I’d forgotten all about my tiredness and was planning the next section down to Karumba.

Crocodiles are a significant consideration in this area, not just for the occasional kayaker but for fishermen, pet owners and any edible thing on or near the sea. It’s often the case that tourists arrive in Australia terrified of venturing further than Pitt Street in central Sydney due to stories of the top ten most venomous snakes, spiders and the dreaded drop bear. However, you have to look very hard to find dangerous critters when you’re in the bush. Odds are your average tourist is more likely to meet an untimely end on their holiday due to the much-maligned falling fridge than from any of the deadly wildlife. But when you get to croc country, you find it’s not all hype and if you don’t use the equivalent of road rules when dealing with crocs it may just be a matter of time.

A few months before I arrived in Weipa, a fisherman was attacked by a croc less than a kilometre from where I was camping and only 200 metres from the local pub. He was fishing up a creek only 50 metres from the beach. I’d waded across this creek a few times as I walked from the camp down the beach to the pub. The fisherman was snapped on the leg then the croc tried to pull him into the creek but he grabbed onto a mangrove root and held on. The croc, unable to gain purchase on the ground as the banks were steep, could only try and swim backwards to pull his dinner in. The creek was only 10 metres wide at this point; it was such a small creek that when the croc left, the water level dropped.

The shouts of the fisherman alerted those in the pub who wandered over, pulled the fisherman out of the croc’s jaws and were back at the bar before their beers had gotten warm. The fisherman admitted during an interview that during his life-or-death struggle he threw his little dog in the stream, hoping the croc would go for an easier but perhaps less satisfying meal. That was it for the hapless fisherman; any sympathy he had was lost as the focus turned to ‘Who was looking after the poor dog while that bastard was recovering in hospital?’

The lesson for me was, ‘Anywhere, anytime, assume crocs’. I am usually aware of what’s going on around me but being part of the food chain takes it to a new level. It was so ingrained in me after travelling for thousands of kilometres in areas where crocs are common that for months after getting back to Sydney I was still checking out logs in the water.

Recharged after my rest in Weipa, I set off on 28 April with six of my 6-litre water bags almost full and two weeks of food, very mindful of the remote country I had to cover before getting to Karumba. The rain had stopped, and after months of packing away wet gear it took me a while to get used to the idea of dry weather. It didn’t rain again for the rest of the trip.

My days on the water would start at 7 am, when there would be a light wind blowing from the east-south-east, which would die away during the morning. Then it was replaced around 3 pm by a slightly stronger southwest headwind, but by that time I would have done my 50 kilometres and be looking for a place to land.

I picked up a stomach bug in Weipa and had a few days of diarrhoea. This is socially inconvenient in my other world but it was a serious problem in the world I was currently travelling through. It left me feeling weak and losing nutrition before my body had time to absorb it, but more serious was the dehydration. It took a couple of days to get over, but I still managed to cover 50 kilometres a day, my target if I was to reach the next drinking water before my supplies ran out. As always, though, once I started a section there was no option of turning around. If things got tough I only thought of how far I had to go, not how far it was to backtrack.