Whistling Rock at Twilight Cove

I would have loved to do the BIG shopping fort the long remote Great Australian Bight leg together with Greg, but the weather was too good to take a day off. I left him with a long list, and I set off paddling across the beautiful Esperance Bay on a sunny early morning with low headwind. It was supposed to increase over the day, so I was not sure about how far I would get this day.

All islands in Esperance Bay were out of solid granite, with no landing as far as I could see. They gave a good shelter, and the water was quiet and with almost no swell.

Nearing Cape le Grand, a first shiny white sandy beach showed up, quite a remote spot to camp! Although the headwinds were freshening over lunch, I was not ready yet to pull in. The first bay, Hellfire Bay, with car access for Greg came, as beautiful white as all the previous ones.

Headwinds became more nasty, and I was thinking what’s it worth to paddle around the corner into Rossiter Bay or even to Dunn Rocks into the night, this is just a detour. I rather pull into the easy accessible beautiful small Thistle Cove, have again a relatively early stop at 3.30 pm, and will help Greg to organizes and store all the food he was buying for the next leg. There won’t be any town with resupply chance until Ceduna after the Great Australian Bight is finished.

I neared the shore in Thistle Cove, aiming for the most unsheltered corner where the road came down, with a huge knee high surf rolling onto a flat shallow beach. I though now it’s time for some playful speeding up on that kiddy wave, and accelerated on expecting a lovely surf in, right under the eyes of a tourist couple climbing on the granite rock above me. But what happened instead was a beginner’s capsize right out of a picture album, with a following expert’s ground hand roll up again…how embarrassing!!! I was obviously more used to avoid the surf and to come safely in than to play with it…

As I was wet already, I thought play this was intentionally, go for another roll, and after jumping out of the boat, I straight went for a lovely swim in the beautiful clear chilly water, getting fully wet.

Just when I came back to my boat, really ready for a fresh water shower and a change into warm and dry clothes, a guy came down from the rocks for a chat. He told me he met Greg in town, and knew I would probably be here in some hour’s time! Sorry, I said, I’m not in the mood for a longer chat, I’m freezing and would like to change soon…ok, a quick picture, and off he went again. Not sure about any steering eyes on my bare backside on my beach shower and changing act…who cares!

Greg found me some minutes later. We left the boat on the beach again, and drove to a reasonable official campsite in the National Park at Lucky Bay. Our spot had two picnic tables and cooking facilities, and no neighbors! Nice! The tables were soon covered with all sorts of shopping bags, and I started to lay it out nicely to see what he was shopping. Piles of stuff! Great job! I was very happy to organize everything into our storage boxes again, and believe it or not, although four boxes were full of fresh water bags already, everything was fitting eventually nicely. We were loading the spare kayak with some light stuff as well, quite useful storage space!

Dinner was lamb fillet with fresh veggies – delicious! Thanks for cooking and shopping, Greg!

Text message via satellite phone:

33.59 122.12 Thistle Cove 40km 6to15.5 organized a pile of food for the Great Australian Bight low to moderate headwinds