Campsite at Johnny Souey Point

The forecast for the day was VERY strong winds at lunchtime – the morning looked still quiet and I had a go relatively late at 8.30am – see how far I would get…enough beaches to land on were around.

I was heading a slight bit offshore, wanting to pass Rabbit Island close to the left, heading directly to Snake Island. I should have better kept close to shore, even on cutting across Five Mile Beach already…the morning was allright with moderate (head-)winds, then a brief ten minutes with just *NO* wind at all…this should have been a warning…out of the sudden it was blowing force 5-6, gusting 7 or 8 *offshore*!!!

I am sure if I would not simply *enjoy* fighting such a wind, especially when it was a *hot* wind like this one – like coming right out of the cookie oven with a stron fan turned on… – not many people would have made it eventually ashore to the end of Five Mile Beach…, right before Rabbit Rock. I was hoping to find some windshade there, and about 1-2 m close to the rocks of the mainland there was some shelter, but not earlier…

I could (should…) have pulled ashore there at Five Miles Beach, or on the next beach before Rabbit Rock, but I wanted more…that wind was such a delightful challenge as I was sneaking around the headland behind Rabbit Rock, keeping as close to the shore as possible, still catching enough headwind and gusts to make it a hard fighting pleasure…one smallish beach looked very inviting, but I was thinking about the fresh water again around Johnny Souey Point…and I kept on fighting into the strongest and most strangely hot headwind I was ever experiencing! It was about an hour of paddling – I was almost lying on my front deck, still paddling with my back in “skating style” (good to be fexible…), sneaking underneath the wind – and if my GPS wouldn’t have told me I was still making 4-5 km per hour I wouldn’t have believed it if that machine wouldn’t be there…even the water seemed to go backwards.

Eventually I reached Johnny Souey Point and the lovely Beach behind it – a river mouth, most inviting looking for crocodiles if it would be way futher noth…

I enjoyed the fresh water bath in the river mouth in the tea tree tanned water. You could have taken it for drinking if necessary…maybe boiling it before.

It was good I was eventually coming ashore – dark black  sky announced a heavy thundestorm coming up – and I was hurrying to put up my tent. Eventually it was more thunder than rain, not cooling off too much at all.

Nasty flies, fat March Flies and huge ants around made my shutting my tent flies, and I felt like being in a one person sauna…the single person MSR Hubba HP I picked, though I was sewing a second entrance in, just doesn’t provide enough room and ventilation for all my office and kitchen crab and myself. I don’t want to reach outside all the time picking or releasing a bag from or to the entrance…getting bugs in again…I’ll swap soon again back to my New zealand sandfly-proven proven Hilleberg Allak tent!!! It was a nice try anyway…

Thousands of little crabs came out of their sandholes after the rain…

Not sure if the noisy parrot around my tent was about to attack my gear and tent as the New Zealand Keas loved to…he kept quiet eventually. Then a loud noise made probably by a cricket kept me awake for long…at least I was not freezing that night! But OZ bushlife is way more scary for me than more or less “sterile” with not many biting bugs besides the sandflies the New Zealand one…