Filtered by category "OZ11:Kalbarri-Perth"

Ken Wilson, my host in Kalbarri (please see day 214 -220) and already the host of Paul Caffyn 27 years ago and the host of the team of three paddlers doing the cliffs in 2002 did a lovely beautiful job on putting up this memorial plate on his house!  I was almost moved to tears […]

I stimply stuffed all my soaking wet clothes and gear into the boat in any mode, and happily launched into a sunny, calm and short 40 km paddling day! I was really looking forward to meet and greet the Perth people, and to be hosted by Terry Bolland and his lovely wife Jenny in a dry, warm […]

I was seeing the first seal on the west coast today after the tropical north! It was quite a friendly curious guy, popping his head out of the water for about ten longish times, then swimming around and under my boat! I was talking to him, and I reckon he understood me…he looked so clever!     It […]

stranded whale on Magic Reef The day after the storm…it was forecasted moderate to stronger north westerlies, so I was keen to leave Wedge Island beach, to get away from all that sandblasting and to make some progress again!   I was packing under the supervision of some early morning beach walkers, and got some […]

  The night was rough! I was so stupid to quickly put up my tent on the open beach instead of seaking shelter in the dune belt in the dusk. But convenience and shivering that night didn’t make me thinking about a better wind shelter and I trusted my Hillberg Allak tent. But I had to […]

Two high end WA paddlers, John Wilkie in the very sexy brandnew epic V12 surfski and Ash Nesbit in some other ski :-),  joined me for about an hour north of Grey! There must be something special about a red nose – Rudolph has one, too!   It looked like an easy shelterd paddling day inside the […]

North Head – view from the “Head” to the “Neck” where I was almost tempted to haul over   I waved good bye to Tim and levi and was on my own again with a loaded boat…in quiet seas, it akes not much difference in stability, but in big seas I feel actually more safe […]

            In the morning the sea was littered with whitecaps, and I decided to take it slow and rather enjoy a good breakfast in the sheltered caravan. I didn’t feel like plugging again into 25kn headwinds…   But after a good feed of eggs on toast, pancakes, fruit and yoghurt […]

“Two Kids” – Tim and Levi Fitzhardinge   The night was pretty windy, and next morning Tim offered to take my gear down the coast that I had it a bit easier that day paddling into headwinds with an empty boat! He was just back from a business project on his “workhorse”, a 34m oilrigg […]

Three generations of the Fitzhardinge family hosting me in Port Denison. Thanks!   I thought that low surf wouldn’t be a problem, I won’t even need my PFD on, just time it right and paddle out! I should have remembered my long broaching in on a bigger wave last night…it bloody actually threw me on […]