Sea Trek Issue 70 - Victorian Sea Kayak Club

metre or so. After that, the chop settled
in, the westerly settled in and we had no
choice but to grit our teeth and settle
ourselves in for the long haul. The sight
of a nearing Townsend Point was a Godsend,
but our spirits rose further when we
realised that a small wind shift had occurred
– a small but very helpful swing to
the south. Rounding Townsend Point, it
was “break out your sails boys” and we
paddle/sailed our way to familiar territory,
the outline of Bentley Point evoking
the ancient VSKC folklore tale of the day
current President Terry first photographed
the Bentley Point Blowhole.
Ah the Cattlemen’s Huts – flushing toilets
and brand new mattresses that (then)
didn’t smell strongly of horses (by the
June 2011 long weekend they did, unfortunately).
A roaring fire, more low quality
music and an early night (“put that
ukulele away Treasure or we’ll surgically
insert it where it’ll never trouble the
VSKC membership again”) and we slept,
dreaming of the forecast conditions for
the next day.
Wow – when we luck out, we totally luck
out. We awoke to a day that the Whitsundays
can’t hope to match. Not even
receding tide to prevent an assault on
Granite Island could dampen our spirits.
Lunch at Tinmine (no, Terry, Treasure
didn’t sit on the native pigface ....... this
time). Treasure found huge fish swimming
around the reef at the north end of
Tinmine – the plan was to get the camera
ready, roll under, get as many close ups
as possible and then roll up – the result
was one very blurry close up photo followed
by shots of a deserted reef (lacks
subtlety our Treasure but at least this
time he didn’t leave his prescription sunnies
in 30 feet of crystal clear water ...)
A well-received lunch, a chat with some
fishermen and a moderate easterly breeze
to aid our trip north to Welshpool and we
were away. Paddle-sailing in a strong
cross breeze, we were generating a bowwave
indicative of 8 or 9 knots. What?
The GPS says 2 knots – wow, what a
tidal flow. However, when we reached
the corner near Biddy’s, the tide flow
was now side on – in 100 metres, speed
across the bottom jumped from 2.1 knots
to 8.5 knots. Yippee – this is living.
We rocketed home to Welshpool, to find
Club local Lyn Atkinson on the beach
having herself done the best of the
Nooramunga National Park to enjoy the
day. Thankfully, she obliged by taking
the mandatory trip end photos (neither
engineers nor accountants can operate the
time delay facility on a digital camera).
Greg Gleeson
Yep, Richard, you were right about the
trip – what a cracker ....”
_________________________________
FACT SHEET by Derek Wilson
EASE OF PADDLE
This is a relatively easy paddle with
modest daily distances - particularly if
one spends 3 days on it as we did. As
ever, however, the ease of the paddle
depends very much on the weather conditions
on the day. Prevailing westerly
winds mean that one paddles to the west
end with wind behind – great fun – but
you have to paddle back again!
THINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR:
Tides: Parts of the Nooramunga channel
between Snake Island and the mainland
are very shallow. “Middle ground”
(where the tide meets from opposite directions)
is approximately one third of
the distance from Port Welshpool to the
Port Albert entrance. At low tide, the
middle ground is almost all dry land.
The best bet is to try to hit middle ground
at high tide so that you can enjoy tidal
assist from the incoming tide between
Port Welshpool and middle ground and
tidal assist from the ebb tide between
middle ground and the Port Albert entrance
(or vice versa if you are going the
other way).
Camp site: There are only two marked
camp sites on the Parks Victoria map of
Snake Island – both at the west end.
Although one can camp anywhere on the
island (with a permit from Parks Victoria)
there are not many suitable spots to
camp at the east end of the Island. After
camping on a previous trip at the East
end of Snake Island itself, we were
tempted this time by reports of a camp
site on the second of the two little islands
at the east end of Snake Island itself.
However, the coordinates we were given
(in an apparent clearing in the satellite
photo) turned out to be a swamp! The
actual camp site is shown on the attached
image from Google Earth and may be
found at 38 44.789 S 146 38.181 E.
Other: Beware of the large exposed
sand flats at low tide that can result in
fairly lengthy portages if you get your
timing wrong. .The sand bars in the area
are subject to change.
At Easter 2011, the sandy spit shown in
the image below to the east of the easternmost
little island was not present.
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