This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
ith a horrendous weather forecast for the a / whole weekend, paddling in the Marlborough Sounds wasn’t high on my list of things I’d most like to spend my weekend doing, and I’m sure most of us felt the same. But— piking was not an option, and we descended on the South Island in gale force winds. We crashed at Roger’s (who rented out the kayaks) place in Anakiwa for the night, had a look at the map and various options for the weekend. There was a gale warning for Cook Strait and winds were forecast for up to 45 knots — hence our decision to flag our original plan to cruise the outer Sound. We were on the water early to beat the inevitable late morning breeze. It was positively pleasant cruising out Grove Arm. Then the drizzle became progressively steadier, and the wind gradually picked up. We had a look into Double Bay for the legendary tame fish, but it seemed like even the fish had done the sensible thing and gone into hiding. The Colonel tried to round up the troops to push on, but the winds coming out of Torea Bay looked pretty fierce, and many of us wondered what the point of battling on may be (let alone camping out under a wet, leaking fly). So the decision was made to retreat into Lochmara Bay, locate Lochmara Lodge, and stay the night there. After fighting a strong headwind, we arrived in backpacker heaven: the place is paradise,
Jeanine Langvik
especially if you’ve been sitting in the rain in a kayak for some time. A converted bach, it’s stylishly redecorated and set among native bush and sculpted punga trees. We all quickly relocated in front of the fire, waiting for the spa to heat up, and had a really restful afternoon veging out. Harry, Lyndsay, Eric and Ferrida got stuck into a 1000 piece puzzle — not knowing it would take until 2am to finish it! After some calculation, we reckoned it had taken 48 hours of work combined... Amazingly, Harry even forewent the opportunity of a spa pool. Sunday was slightly better in terms of weather, despite the warning for Cook being upgraded toa storm warning. We said goodbye to the dog, paddled up to Kumutoto Bay for lunch, then around Allports Island en route to Picton. There were lots of yachts out sailing, and cries of “get the fly out!” were heard. We laboriously rigged the fly only to find the wind blowing us in the wrong direction — it’s hard to tack a fleet of multiple kayaks! Ferrida, Ailsa and Eric rigged a groundsheet, which resulted in an enquiry froma yacht of whether they needed any assistance. Despite the worst possible forecast, we all had a great time (and were happy not to be tramping!)
Paddlers/puzzlers: Harry, Lyndsay, Eric, Ferrida, Gabriel, Deborah, Sue, Ailsa, John, Nick, Wayne & Jeanine.