On the road (water) again…

Mick McRobb loaded my boat on his work van, and off we go, quite a bit of a drive from Barnsdale to Lakes Entrance again that early morning.

On the way I had a live radio interview with Brandon from ABC radio – has anybody heard it?

As I had to pick two parcels from the post office which didn’t open before 9am, launching got quite late for that beautiful day, 9.30 am. I was swapping tents, from a good single person MSR Hubba HP which just give me enough living space, to my NZ-proven two person Hilleberg Allak again.

And I can’t live without my JAMA food on this trip, the next supply parcel was waiting there as well.

Enjoying my JAMA bar mix on the water…you’ll never get sick of that fresh taste!

Plus they sent an epic action cameras suction cup mount for my little video camera. I have to play with that soon…

A pelican looks exotic for ME…

Heading out of the inlet against the tide in a non existing eddy was quite a bit of a challenge, but luckily there were no huge waves like out of the Grey River bar in NZ standing at the entrance. Just some choppy water, I thought…why did I catch the one and only BIG one coming? I thought I could stay dry for a while…splash…here we go! Woken up again…on the road again.

For sure the launching that day was way too late to make great progress before the strong head wind is kicking in again, but sometimes logistics had priority if you are a one-woman-team only…

40 km for that day only, with frequent powernaps again as sleep was only for 4 hrs the previous night. I felt I had to catch up with my computer stuff on the “rest” day…, 

I pulled up to the shore at 8pm. Not that I was tired, I could have gone for another hour until it got dark…but a HUGE shiny black thing on shore caught my eye…what the hell was that? A big rock right in the middle of an endless sandy dune stretch? An UFO?

I was *very*carefully nearing that thing, was it a turtle? Was it dead or alive?? About 2 m long x 1,50 m wide x 0,60 m high, plus fins spread out to the sides, occasionally changing positions in the rolling waves.

I was walking round it in the surf, and found his face…

I realized that must be a *fish*, a HUGE sunfish. I’ve never thought they are getting that BIG. Later I learnt it was just a “regular” size sunfish. Boaters bumping ito the slow animals do damage their yachts…

At that night I felt I discovered a sensation, and decided to stay at the beach at 8pm. I was curious to see what has happened next morning to the animal. But luckily it was gone with the high tide…and it hopefully survived.