the Bilbunya Dunes in the distance

Time to go for the last bit of beach before the cliffs! The wind was supposed to be 10-15kn headwinds in the morning, and to freshen up during the day to 20 kn. So it would be ok-ish in the morning, and quite some plugging towards the end of the day.

We walked out to the beach, and I climbed in my boat, intending to stay inside the surf lines again like on the paddle on Wednesday. This would provide me easy landings at any time for recovering, with the same speed as offshore, so I hoped!

The paddle was similar to the other day, but unfortunately only the first three km…The belt of calmish water closed up and disappeared, and the last breaker onto the beach was no longer rolling softly out on a shallow knee deep “pool water”, swapping gently against a pile of almost meter high seaweed, but dumping more violently onto a shallow sandy beach with little to no seaweed any more.

This left me with no other option than to paddle out through the breaker zone, which was quite dumpy by now, and to try my luck against the headwind out there! With some start and stop tactic, waiting in the foamy water just created by a breaking dumper in front of me, I eventually made it out and was determined I’d stay out there until I reached the end of the beach after a long 55 km day of plugging.

Progress was getting slower and slower as the day wore on and the wind lifted as usual, but I would love to make it that day to the start of the cliffs! As there would be some days off after this day before I could start the cliffs, I could wear myself out a bit…

In the distance I could see the high white piles of the Bilbunya Dunes, and the dark band of the Wylie Scarp was closing up to the coast behind them. Those dunes gave quite an impressive sight! I was hoping to be able to explore them in the next days off! Where the Wylie Scarp meets the beach, this is where the Baxter Cliffs start.

I was fighting my way along the last km with less than 4 km/hr, and was very happy to see the distance counting down and to know via radio that Greg made it through the last access down to the beach and that he could drive about 6 km on the firm sand to almost the start of the cliffs.

Landing was a bit scary through two lines of violent dumpers which had lifted over the day, but with  good timing I made it in without being trashed!

Greg quickly grabbed my bow toggle and pulled me out of the surge. It felt good to be there! The cliffs looked quite impressive…but it would be probably for five days off until I could paddle along them with a reasonable westerly following wind. No way to paddle them in those strong easterlies, even if it would be lower winds in the morning! It was all day like 10-15 kn in the morning, 15-20 kn at lunchtime, and 20-25 kn in the afternoon, including a windy night.

We made camp this night in the dunes, driving back some 6 km, and rather than staying on the spot for five days until the westerly change comes up on Thursday, we decided to drive out and get fuel. There should be just enough fuel left to make it to a roadhouse on the highway 100 odd km away over even more doubtful *road*.

Text message from Freya via satellite phone: