SW Tassie Epilogue and video

I didn't mean it but it was perceived darker than I intended and worst than I felt it. I am talking about my recount of my adventure on the South west of Tasmania.
After I wrote the blog many people told me how dark it seemed and how bad was my experience. I reread the text a few times and I still don't find it so bad. However communications is as much about the received message as the sent one. It was a hard trip and after many hours of paddling my feeling was more of relief of having finished for the day than of fulfilment for having completed the leg. However it was a rewarding experience and I am richer for it. I will try to lift a bit that obscure aura from my previous writing.

The area we went to is beautiful, Matt said many times he felt paddling inside a picture and it really was like that. Amazing coastline, many albatross flying by, islands and beaches that looked like nobody before you had ever stepped on.


Were we the first on this beach? Photo Adrian C

Rocks big as islands and flying fauna everywhere. Photo Adrian C

Almost every day I saw features that I felt to stop and play around. With Wade we dreamt of coming back on a mother ship. We would seal launch from it and go playing with the countless rocks, some big as islands. Paddling empty kayaks we could surf the surges around them. When we felt satisfied or the weather turned bad we would go back to the big ship and sail to harbour... That is what you think with so many hours of catch after exit after catch of the blade into the water.
We fulfilled some of those dreams. Wade came back on a sail ship. I went through some of those cracks and features.


There is light at the end and I don't think it is a train

We visited a seal colony and one jealous mother decided to visit me.

The wild life acting wild

Then there was the camping life. Talking about nothing or sometimes in silence. Sharing the camaraderie of like minded persons immersed in an activity we all enjoy.

We, almost all, laughed at the race someone in the group did as soon as he landed. Every time he would try to sprint the last few meters and get to dry land first. Unpack a couple of dry bags from the boat and claim the best spot to pitch his tent.

At cooking time we all had to stop talking when one of us was using his very antisocial cooking stove. It was like having a jet warming the engines in the campsite. We all, him included, laughed  when we had to halt our conversation every time he warmed some water.

Almost everyone had a nice compact chair to sit on. Stuart didn't have a chair but he had a piece of mattress. I was the only one with nothing at all to land my butts on. So whenever someone stood up I rushed to rest in his chair. All laughed at me hoping from spot to spot trying to rest my back.

It was a good trip, not the kind of trip I enjoy the most but something I am glad I did. In 2011 I spend a week of unsupported paddling and camping in the Keppel Islands. When I came back I told my wife I would not do something like that again. Almost 3 years later I put my name for this 'expedition'. When I came back I told my wife I will not do something like that again... Maybe in 3 years, who knows?

Enjoy the short video from images of the trip: