All the Way Round (10 page)

I looked in vain for a way in, but was forced to backtrack in search of a safe landing. It was almost two and a half hours before I found a spot where I thought the surf was less vicious. Having estimated a lull in the waves, I lined up for a sprint to shore and was just about to commit to the point of no return inside the break zone, when a whale and her calf surfaced between me and the beach. I backed off to avoid a collision but just as I missed my chance a big set went through that would have broken on me before I made it to shore. I thanked the whale and moved further down the beach.

Next time there was no distraction and I was off, catching a wave that, to my amazement, didn’t break but gave me a ride for over 100 metres almost all the way to the beach. Just before landing I looked back with relief as three or four regimented lines of water rose up to chase me in, thankfully too late to be of any danger.

With all that excitement behind me I decided to wait a further day before heading across the cliffs. The weather was forecast to improve, giving the surf a chance to die down a bit more. I spent the day walking to the top of the escarpment to check out the view. The name ‘Nullarbor’ is derived from Latin:
nullus
, ‘no’, and
arbor
, ‘tree’. It wasn’t hard to see how it got its name.

The beach made for a good photo. Initial impressions were of a perfect beach with clean sands sweeping away from the ocean up to dunes topped by the first desperate attempts of plants to live on the fringes of land. However, a closer look through kayakers’ eyes revealed lopsided bushes clinging to the earth and the crescent dunes continually creeping away from the same winds I feared.

Flying home from Perth a few months earlier I’d had the misfortune to be seated by the window on the port side. This gave me a bird’s-eye view of the area through which I was about to paddle. It looked exactly like the map I’d been studying for months and I could name all the locations from the comfort of my seat. The difference between the map and seeing it from the plane was that the view from the plane was real. It was a shock to see the scale of the vast featureless land dropping dramatically into a vast featureless ocean. I turned away and ordered another scotch.

And now, here I was, facing a challenge that was going to take a marathon effort to overcome. But I was prepared and I’d already cleared many obstacles to get this far, so on 29 August I set off. The surf had calmed down considerably over the past day, making my exit relatively easy. The wind was blowing 20 knots from the north across the Nullarbor into my left ear, with a forecast of it shifting around to the southwest then dying off to 10 knots. It took me an hour to paddle the 5 kilometres from my camp on the beach to the start of the Baxter Cliffs. At 50 metres high, they gave shelter from the wind which blew over the top, leaving flat seas at the bottom of the cliffs. As I momentarily relaxed in the calm I had a look as far as I could along the 160 kilometres ahead. The cliffs were sheer and continuous, stretching over the horizon with no hint of weakness. The ledges and cracks were bald, stripped of any vegetation by the winds.

With the mellow seas I was able to paddle very close to the bottom of the cliffs. There was no swell because the sea bed was shallow, sometimes even showing as small beaches at the bottom of the cliff at low tide. This was just the sort of place where southern right whales rest while their youngsters gain strength for the journey to Antarctica. I passed many, and because of my near-miss at the Zuytdorp Cliffs I even chose to move offshore to avoid running into them at night.

Things went well throughout the day with the winds dying down as predicted, leaving me with nothing to worry about other than the next six hours, then the six after that . . .

But around 9 pm things started to get tougher. It began to drizzle and the wind picked up to around 15 knots. When paddling at night it’s very rarely completely dark. The moon, stars or city lights usually give some visibility, but not on this occasion. It had clouded over; there wasn’t much of a moon, nor any stars. I couldn’t see the horizon, nor the movement of the ocean. All that occasionally showed were the dim lights of the trucks crossing the plains above the cliffs.

When you can’t see the swell of the ocean you can’t predict the roll of the kayak and make subtle movements of your hips to stay balanced. So I was firmly braced in the kayak, with my knees jammed under the cockpit, and having a much harder time than usual keeping upright. The kayak was making exaggerated rolls from side to side as the waves moved underneath. I was unusually nervous and unsure of my ability to stay upright in conditions that, while trying, shouldn’t be making me work as hard as I was having to.

The reason for the kayak’s instability, I found out after landing, was that my deck bag had filled with water as I hadn’t closed it properly. I used the bag, which was on top of the deck, to carry bulky items like my desalinator and sponsons (airbags used for stability). It meant I could grab the sponsons easily if I needed to deploy them and pack them away again without too much fuss. This was the first time it had given me any trouble. I later estimated that with the water that had leaked into the bag its weight totalled 10 kilograms, which was why it was harder to keep the kayak upright and was sapping my energy levels much quicker than usual.

The night really dragged on . . . minute by minute, hour by hour. I wasn’t having a nice time at all; I was struggling and becoming aware that the margin of error was closing in as my reflexes were slowing.

It’s well known that the effects of sleep deprivation are very similar to the consequences of drinking alcohol. Your speech becomes slurred, your attention, awareness and concentration all suffer, and you become forgetful and can’t solve problems. (Some people might say that I’m like that even when I’m sober.) But when lack of sleep is combined with continuous exercise in a stressful situation, in an outdoor environment, it’s like being really pissed but without any of the good bits.

It’s not unusual for me to hallucinate when I’ve paddled for extended periods without sleep. But this time I had an ‘out of body’ experience where I was watching myself from about 3 metres above my left shoulder. I saw myself paddling with no hat and a red fleece; although I was actually wearing a red hat and yellow jacket. It was so vivid that once, when stopping for a pee, I turned around to tell myself I was stopping. That’s when I started to realise things had reached a dangerous level.

What was happening, but wasn’t obvious to me at the time, was that I was suffering from hypothermia. The spray skirt was leaking badly, as well as dipping underwater every time I wobbled from side to side, so the cold sea was constantly running into the cockpit then down my trunk and legs. Hypothermia can creep up on you. It gradually sucks life away while dulling your mind, so it can carry on undisturbed and unnoticed. There is no pain, but bit by bit it reduces your physical and mental ability to function. It is so subtle that it has control of the situation before you realise the trouble you’re in. But by then it can be too late. As you lose control the body shuts down everything but the essentials it needs to sustain life.

At some point after midnight, I knew I was in a bad way and if anything went wrong I wouldn’t have the reserves to get out of trouble. Even though I was only 500 metres from the bottom of the cliff, I doubt I could have swum that distance if I’d needed to. In my exhausted state, I would have been overcome by the cold water before the slow swim in my paddling clothes and life jacket would have gotten me close enough to find rocks where I could scramble out. Then there would have been little hope of making the 70-metre climb to the top of the cliff for help. At least if I made it to shore I could have used my PLB, assuming it still worked, and hoped for a rope to be lowered.

So to keep me going throughout the tough night I made plans for the most mundane tasks, tasks I’d done hundreds of times before. Aware that a moment’s lapse of concentration could mean disaster, I’d shout out a detailed plan of how I was going to stop and have a pee, then talk myself through it. When things were at their worst I repeated the names of my kids and told myself that to weaken and give in to the physical and mental strain would mean I’d never see them again.

With the arrival of dawn and the first hint of a warming sun, I started to feel better. I only had 20 kilometres to go, although it was one of the hardest 20 kilometres of the entire trip. The sight of the sandy beach of Twilight Cove after 30 hours came almost as a shock. Thankfully, there was no surf to deal with, only a couple of whales to negotiate during my landing.

When I reached the shore there was no feeling of elation or sense of achievement or relief, just numbness. I made myself unload the kayak, carry my kit up the beach, get changed into dry clothes then pull the kayak up. I was a mess. I had salt sores on my trunk and under my armpits from rubbing, aching legs from being tensed up under the deck all night, and was utterly exhausted from the cold and the effort of paddling a heavy, unbalanced kayak over 160 kilometres. But although I’d finished the cliff line and was on land, I couldn’t relax and congratulate myself. I was still a day from the next water and food supply. I had only 2 litres of water left to cook my remaining meal and to get my battered carcass to the Eyre Bird Observatory the next day, with a forecast of 30-knot winds to battle. I told myself that once I got there I could reflect on the past few days, but not before.

I found an old, broken chair left behind by fishermen and was sitting down with my feet resting on the kayak, looking at my pitiful rice dinner, when I noticed a cloud of dust a few kilometres down the beach. It wasn’t long before three four-wheel-drives emerged from the cloud, zigzagging their way along the beach at speed.

The cars pulled up, forming a corral about 20 metres from me, and sent an ambassador to find out what I was about. I tiredly explained my trip, and that I’d just paddled from Esperance, after which he duly reported back. I could see a short exchange and flurry of words then the unfortunate ambassador was sent back to me with obvious orders to get the story right. With the story confirmed, a second man appeared, stood over me for a few seconds, regarded my exhausted state, scanned my kit, looked with disdain at my half-finished rice, then drew himself up to full height and said, ‘I think we can do better than that!’

There were four men and they were out for a bit of remote fishing, although I suspect the fishing was just a bit of an excuse to justify getting out. Only one of the team made any effort to catch anything and he came back empty-handed. The others made themselves busy setting up camp and preparing dinner in a roundabout way.

I was treated to the best roast dinner I’m ever likely to have. As a bonus I was informed the rough track had caused all the screwtops on a case of beer to come loose so between us we had to drink the lot. I slept well that night.

The next morning my body was confused. Some parts were sending messages to my brain that I needed to be hospitalised, the rest was advising I stay in the sleeping bag. But my brain didn’t translate these messages too well, so it made me get up and paddle.

The Eyre Bird Observatory (EBO) is conveniently placed a day’s paddle from the end of Baxter Cliffs and lies within five minutes walking distance of the beach. It was built in 1897, as the Eyre Telegraph Station, allowing communication between South Australia and Western Australia until it was deserted in 1930. Restored and established as Australia’s first bird observatory in 1977, it is now run by ornithologists offering full board. It’s a quiet place and well worth a visit if travelling across the Nullarbor by car or along the coast by kayak. The sand dunes towering over the old telegraph building threaten to engulf the structure in the future, but until then it’s a great place to stay.

I’d sent myself a food parcel in preparation for my visit but the lentils and pasta, while sufficient to get me to Eucla, looked a bit unappetising when compared to the meals that the caretakers of the EBO fed me. I also learnt that Eucla had no supermarket and so everyone in the area shopped online and had their food delivered. So that’s what I did, too, ordering my usual supplies over the phone from the nearest supermarket, which was hundreds of kilometres away, and getting them delivered to Eucla, where they would be waiting for me at the roadhouse when I arrived—it worked really well.

I arrived at the EBO on the last day of August, and over the next three days there was a record rainfall over a 24-hour period (which just meant it drizzled nonstop for a day, but that’s still quite an event in this area), and the winds blew relentlessly. I realised I’d managed the stretch between Israelite Bay and EBO with nothing to spare on either side as far as acceptable weather went. If I had left Israelite Bay too soon I would have been caught; if I hadn’t gone when I did then I would have missed the opportunity to cross the cliffs and would still be on a beach somewhere feeling very alone and thirsty.

I’d expected big surf on the 270-kilometre stretch between EBO and Eucla, but to my great relief Ken in Albany had told me that the swell would be trouble free and he was right. I had a mixture of winds but nothing that prevented progress each day. There was drinking water at the occasional fishermen’s huts which, being out of season, weren’t occupied. As I paddled along the scenery changed subtly; the light colours of the sands formed a dramatic border between the clear, blue waters and the sparse greenery of the Nullarbor. I think the colours in the foliage were in celebration of the bit of rain that fell at this time of year; after a few months of summer the colours would have been sucked out. There were no trees, hills or buildings to gauge distance or scale, so it was hard to determine if the white thing ahead was a seagull not far away or a pelican a bit further off or a boat wreck in the distance. All in all it was quite a pleasant section of my journey.

Bureaucracy in the bush

I got to Eucla Jetty on 8 September. From what I saw on the map I thought the town would be close by. I was a little disappointed to find that the few lights visible on the escarpment 5 kilometres away were Eucla. The jetty was used in days gone by but now the main road from Ceduna to Norseman was the region’s lifeline. Thankfully my mobile had reception and I rang the roadhouse and gave a short cry for help. With a bit of an explanation from me, curiosity got the better of ‘Binge’, who drove his ute down to pick me up. He’d thought ahead and brought a couple of tyres to help protect the kayak during the trek back up to the top of the escarpment. But Binge had also brought a friend, so with all the seats taken I stood on the back holding on to my kayak as we bounced up the unsealed road. I had a good view of a couple of emus and plenty of roos from my vantage point and after a short ride I’d travelled the few kilometres from wilderness to suburbia.