Dave and I started the day early, on the water at 6am. Dave set up Nadgee Kayaks, but recently sold it to Lawrence. He is also known as “Crocodile Winkie” after saving his mate’s life by jumping on a crocodile’s back and poking in the crocs eyes…
He is quite a tall strong man, and using an almost empty boat made paddling quite a challenge for me today! Good training…I knew he would pace it hard, as to show me about my “Race” around Australia ambitions are quite some “girlie” ones… :-))
We averaged about 8-9 km per hour for 35 km on flatwater with no wind, well, good early morning workout! It was a pleasure to paddle those 35 km to Bermagui together, and he took some funny pictures!
But my day wasn’t done, and I kept on paddling to Dalmeney, where i had the choice of a reef-sheltered boat ramp in the middle of the town with no campsite or a surflanding on a beach around the corner with a campsite in sight…I chose the latter and the ride in was not too bad.
Looking around, the first thing was to walk up the campsite for a shower, and it was even a hot one! Later there was only one choice – signing up for the campsite, as the caretaker’s office view was right down to the beach and to my boat…wouldn’t be polite to use the facilities and putting up tent right upfront his nose… 🙂
Camping on grass wasn’t bad for the change either, and I was able to use a friendly hooked up caravaning neighbour for charging my electronics. And I could use a convenient picnic table as an outdoor office and kitchen, amazingly bug-free until late night! But eventully it was time for bed at 11 pm – worked online again too much! Curse of carrying your own laptop with internet around and blogging and e-mailing…
The pressure I put on myself about uodating my blog in a decent style everyday piles up if I haven’t been online for a while…can’t say those hours off are relaxing mentally…my mind relaxes mostly on the water, and my body on shore. I’d love to have both again at some point…
Message via satellite phone:
36.09 150.07 Dalmeny Beach, 75km. Good surf landing, hot shower on campsite