A twice kayaking weekend is a good weekend!
Saturday morning was overcast and cool but four members of the TKBs rocked up to our usual departure point at The Spit; myself, Ian, Rod and Quiggy.
We paddled out to Balmoral against a reasonable swell, Ian was struggling in a crappy hire kayak - not usually an issue from Sydney Harbour Kayaks, they usually provide excellent equipment.
We cut across to the north shore of Middle Harbour and pulled into Castle Rock Beach for a break and a swim - I forgot my camera so these were the only shots I got with the Iphone:
On Sunday morning I headed for Taren Point, this would be my first solo voyage with the new kayak and also my first venture into the Georges River/Botany Bay body of water.
I'd read about the Towra Point Nature Reserve and the wetlands around Quibray Bay, so that was where I was headed.
When I arrived at the Hawkesbury Reserve boat ramp I had a few reservations, I'd never launched at a boat ramp before and for the first time I was hauling my 21kg kayak around on my own. It actually turned out to be very easy, the high tide helped as did the well maintained boat ramp that isn't slippery at all. I rested the kayak on top of the wall running parallel to the boat ramp, stood on the ramp in knee deep water and dragged the kayak in...too easy :)
Keeping an eye on the storms forming to the south I headed off!
The first thing that struck me as I paddled under Captain Cook Bridge (Taren Point Rd) was the scream of jet skis, I hate to whinge, but there were dozens of them and they were incredibly noisy and racing around in a fairly reckless manner. I'm glad I didn't have to pass too close to them or I would have been seriously concerned for my safety.
Anyway, thankfully, once I turned to head towards Quibray Bay I left the jet skis behind, their screams dulling to a mosquito-like background drone...hmmm.
About now I decided that the next purchase of equipment would need to be a waterproof housing for the Iphone - I really wasn't sure where Quibray Bay was and it would have been great to have a gander at Google Maps right about now!
Safely dry in the rear hatch of my kayak the Iphone was recording my route on my new sports tracker app, great lot of good it was doing back there! As you will see from this pretty little map it produced I'd missed Quibray Bay rather substantially!
But I had still managed to find some great mangroves to explore
Birds spotted in the mangroves included pelicans (of course), Little Pied Cormorants, Little Black Cormorants, an Osprey (I think - it was flying pretty high - then again maybe it was just a 747 on final to Mascot) and a little flock of what I believe were sandpipers of some kind, most likely the Common Sandpiper. And, one of my favourites, a couple of White Faced Herons
Time on the water on your own is great thinking time and a name for my new kayak has been long overdue - for some reason known only to my brain cells I started thinking about the space shuttle. It's been a sad year for us fans of NASA and space travel with the retirement of the shuttles - for me they will always be symbols of my childhood imagination and dreams - so I decided to christen the kayak Discovery after the shuttle, which in turn was named after the four great British ships of exploration. It seemed appropriate.
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