This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
riginally booked on Raymond's tramp to Lewis Pass, a sore knee got in the way, and Plan B was unearthed — kayaking in the Sounds. As you’d expect, we trolleyed our kayaks onto the ferry, which was filled to the brim with a good representation of Tongue and Meats. As the others settled in for a long bus ride south, we headed to the Picton foreshore and paddled out into the Sound, our strobe lights blinking brightly at the back of our boats. At Torea Bay, 9 km later, we got our trolleys out again and started the haul across Torea Saddle to the Portage. This was hard work as the boats were heavily loaded and Wayne repeatedly let me know how he felt about carrying that #& “ %!! cask of wine. (But then what else would we steam the mussels in?) We were dithering around about what to do, toying with the idea of kayaking around to Queen Charlotte, but considering it too far, and too unlikely that the weather would co-operate. So we settled for Kenepuru and Pelorus Sounds, and eventually started kayaking around 10 am. As we headed across to Pipi Beach in the Pelorus it was really choppy and I thought it unlikely we’d get very far. We decided to head out to Jacob’s Bay and spend the night there. Surprisingly, we had the campsite to ourselves to admire the spectacular starry sky and a magical moonrise. Several glasses of wine were consumed in order to reduce the weight. Saturday’s forecast was good, so we decided to head out to the outer Pelorus to see what it was like. We were both really keen to try to get around to the Queen Charlotte Sound (if only to avoid having to trek across from the Portage again!). After a brief stop at the shop in Wilson’s Bay we headed around Tawero Point, and across to the starfish shaped peninsula (which is annoyingly connected to the mainland only by a very narrow, gnarly, steep, rocky and non-kayaktrofley-friendly bit. So there was no other way of getting around the thing but to paddle. It’s usually that way). The wind was howling down the Tawhitinui Reach around Maud Island at several more knots than had been forecast — it was slow going into the wind, but past Maud we had the wind behind us — great. As soon as we got around to Post Office Point (it’s beyond me why anyone would put a post office out there),
Jeanine Langvik the wind died down and we could finally see out to sea. The Chetwode Islands were glimmering in the sun. Fantastic. This was too much of a temptation, and so the verdict was to keep going. The paddling was a joy across to Forsyth Island. The wind was funnelling through the Allen Strait “highway”, but Alligator Head, the first of the three pointy bits we needed to get around, was beckoning in the distance so on we went. Titirangi Bay, just before Alligator Head, was our “point of no return”, as we reckoned we could camp there if necessary and still get back down the Pelorus if the weather turned bad. Rounding Alligator Head, we spotted points #2 and #3: Cape Lambert and the elusive Cape Jackson in the far distance. We ignored Titirangi Bay. My upper body was starting to feel sore, but we were in high spirits and cruised on across inhospitable Waitui Bay, past heaps of speedboats and yachts (who no doubt were wondering what the heck we were doing out there), and finally reached Cape Lambert, my back and arms aching. The consensus was to get down to Pig Bay in Port Gore, listen to the 5.30 pm forecast and if the weather was good for tomorrow, stay there; if not go on.... Pig Bay wasn’t the ideal campsite, but there was a thin strip of flat land wedged between the beach and the steep hill where we managed to perch our tent. After 51 km of paddling we were just happy to be on terra firma again. Fortunately the forecast for Sunday was on our side. At 5.00 am the next morning we could no longer contain our excitement and jumped out of the tent, packed up in the dark and were on the water by 6.00 am. Now this may be normal behaviour for certain keen fit trippers, but I’ve never done this before. It felt great. The water was like a mirror — and Cape Jackson was 10 km away. It felt kind of strange to paddle right overthe wreck of the Mikhail Lurmentov, ~ buried somewhere in the depths of Port Gore. Midway across, we had this spectacular sunrise, the sun emerging right behind Cape Jackson and leaving a permanent trail on the water for us to follow. Wayne was checking the GPS: 3 km to go. Closer to the Cape, we spotted some dolphins, and as we entered into a large eddy they were suddenly all around us, so close they were bumping into the boats
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Trip Reports
Wayne at Cape Jackson
and I almost hit them with my paddle. We couldn’t have asked for a better cheering committee! Once out of the eddy they disappeared as suddenly as they had arrived. We were finally at the Cape itself. Kayaking through the rips was interesting, although fortunately they were not as severe as we had expected. It was 8.00 am, the weather was brilliant and the we could see the outline of the North Island in the distance. Needless to say the temptation for a crossing was there, but we decided to leave that to another time. Once on the other side, a large speedboat approached wondering if we were OK. We must have been an unusual sight. The Cape is a rough, barren piece of headland and somewhere I'd hate to be in a storm. Now, however, it was perfect, and we continued in Queen Charlotte to more familiar territory. It proved to be’a long haul to the next landing, and we reached Motuara Island for an Easter egg stop at 10am — 4 hours after we started. The birdsong on this island is fantastic (“noisy” according to Wayne), but there is a distinct lack of beaches to land on — especially at high tide. So we left the walk up to Cook’s Cairn for another time.
Jeanine Langvik
We cruised on to Blumine for a laze in the sun. We could have easily gone on to Picton that afternoon, and completed the trip in three days, but an afternoon of rest was great. After a snooze in the sun we cruised down to Double Bay on Arapawa Island. It’s a site used by Outward Bound, but we thought we’d borrow it. However, as we were enjoying a glass of wine and some steamed mussels while our curry was cooking, an unmistakable vessel appeared and approached the beach. People were rowing. Oh, no! We were going to be swamped by starving Outward Bounders left to fend for themselves equipped with two carrots and a match each! We tightened the grip around the wine glass and put any spare food away. We needn’t have worried. After about 15 attempts at trying to anchor the boat correctly, they were . “ordered to sleep in the boat (12 ofthem!) while their instructors went back for a comfortable stay at the support boat. Just because we had stolen their campsite! We felt guilty. In the end we decided it was character building. The rest of the trip back to Picton was uneventful, but we were pleased to have completed the circle, 150 kilometres all up.