Having said that though, there's nothing quite like a warm winter's day in Sydney, it really is spectacular.
It's been a long time between drinks for the TKBs, the weather hasn't been all that friendly and we seem to have been busy with other things, and in many ways I think we just fell out of the habit of our Saturday morning kayaks - but we couldn't have picked a better weekend to get back in the saddle.
There wasn't a cloud in the sky and there wasn't a breath of wind as we left The Spit and headed along the shoreline to Balmoral.
The other great thing about kayaking in the harbour at this time of year is there is generally less boat traffic meaning less wakes to tackle and less risk of being run over! Having said that we make a point of spending the least amount of time as possible in the boating channels and I've never felt that any boat we've encountered was looking like running us over, in fact many are courteous enough to slow right down as they go past.
We followed the southern shoreline of Middle Harbour around to Middle Head and then cut back across to the north, heading towards Manly. As we got closer we made a spontaneous decision (the best type of decision) to take a look at the old Sydney Quarantine Station.
As we turned to the east I glimpsed a rather large splash up ahead, I assumed I'd seen a bird diving or a fish jumping but soon I saw another and another - I was suspicious but skeptical that I was seeing dolphins - we were out in the swell now with a fair bit of chop as well so it was difficult to make out what I was seeing. Then I saw a black shape and had just finished saying, "was that a dolphin?" when one surfaced right in front of us!
It was a pretty brief encounter with a pod of about half a dozen dolphins (of the bottlenose variety I believe), they swam past us within a couple of metres and continued on their way - it was a fantastic moment and not one I expected to have in Sydney Harbour!
We continued on to the Quarantine Station chatting excitedly about our encounter.
As we'd ventured further from our starting point than usual we figured we deserved a break so we pulled up on the lovely little beach at the Quarantine Station for a stretch and rapidly decided a beverage at the cafe was in order.
I was using a skirt on this paddle, the first time I'd used one and I was more than happy with how dry and warm it kept me. I was worried I might be a bit nervous about being 'locked in' but I was confident I'd be able to yank the release strap and get myself out if I somehow capsized - I haven't learned to eskimo role yet.
It'd been so long between paddles that when I got the kayak out of storage I found a few spiderwebs and as there's a healthy population of redback spiders in our backyard I figured a good spray of Mortein was in order. I fumigated the cockpit pretty well, under and behind the seat and right into the foot-well, paying particular attention to the rudder controls and other areas that would be good for spiders to hide. Two drunken spiders emerged so I'm glad I thought to do it. I also managed to kill a beautiful big grasshopper, no idea where that came from or how long it'd been living in there! Anyway when I released the skirt as we pulled up on the beach the lovely warm day and well-sealed compartment and created a lovely environment for the Mortein residue to concentrate and I just about gassed myself, hehe!
Here's our track for the morning, if you want to zoom in or see other details click here Kayak track
We enjoyed a lovely coffee, hot chocolate and jam cookies at the Quarantine Station Cafe.
The Quarantine Station was established in the 1830s, at the time it was a safe distance from the city of Sydney and it was an easy mooring for ships entering the harbour. Any ship that was arriving in Sydney that was suspected to have passengers with contagious diseases had to stop at the Station where crew and passengers were required to stay until declared healthy enough to enter the general population. No doubt through more recent years this would have been a relatively pleasant experience, little more than a quick hospital stay but in the early years it must have been an awful place of primitive health care, death and suffering.You can read about the history of the Quarantine Station here and about the Station in general here.
We didn't really have time to explore so we plan on heading back there as soon as the opportunity arises. One of the more interesting things we did have a quick chance to look at was the carvings in the cliff face made by sailors staying at the Station, there a lot of them and they are beautifully done and really interesting - I can't wait to go back actually.
From here we popped into Manly Cove and then along Sydney Harbour National Park - this is usually pretty tough going as the swells are starting to stand up a bit but I also enjoy watching the backs of the waves as they break against the beaches and rocks.
This is the longest (in both time and distance) kayak the TKBs have done as group (or a pair as the case was this weekend) and added to the length of time it's been since we last paddled we were both pretty knackered when we made it back to The Spit, but if this isn't my favourite kayak of all time so far, it comes awfully close.
Here's our run home, if you want to see the track proper click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment