Was a great weekend, the passage across from Balmaha was more than I was expecting, especially with the wind in our face the whole way, we did get some respite in the shadow of the islands, but the last section was a long haul, and I was glad when we finally got into the wind shade of Inchconnachan (Wallaby Is), when you look at the distance traveled it was only about 5.5 Km, felt a whole lot more.
The little cove worked out really well, and we came across a few others on that side that would make for good camping spots.
The pebble beach where we landed was covered in Wallaby tracks, and about 20-30 metres further in we found a nice flat area to set up our bivis.
WS I did think about taking a hammock set up but I did that last time, I just wanted to try out some new gear, combined with my Snugpak Stratosphere bivi bag, with that I screwed up, I assumed being only a year old it would still be waterproof, it wasn't, not only did it leak at the zip (runs 3/4 down one side) but also the seam on the other side, (there is 2 different types of mat'l used, top and bottom, seamed halfway).
Luckily the new gear was a 90mm exped down mat and the recently reintroduce Alpkit pipedream 800, the mat kept the down bag away from the edges and most of the leakage, and the bag itself kept me warm, too warm in fact I unzipped it early into the night, and used it as a quilt, even though a fair bit of the edges and top were wet.
BTW The 90mm exped is too big to use in a bivi bag, its too thick, the down bag at my feet was compressed almost flat.
I'll be sending an email to Snugpak asking if this is the norm, i.e. having to reproof every year, we'll see what they come back with.
Back to the trip;
On the Saturday once we had set up camp, and I had had a coffee, we got out the cameras and went Wallaby hunting.
At first they were very skittish, but we came across one that after a while started feeding again, so we edged closer, in the end we were within 10 metres of it, and got some good photos.
As it started to get dark we started a fire on the beach, got some good embers and cooked dinner, sitting with a coffee after cleanup and as usual thought it was getting late and then found out it was only 8:30
Sunday morning woke to find a beautiful if damp
morning, after breakfast we again went wallaby hunting were Josh got those fantastic shots of the Mother and Joey.
When we got back to camp, Josh had mislaid a part of his camera and went back for it, and while I was making coffee on the beach the neighbors from the next cove came to visit, (turned out they were SoTP), one in a very nicely made home built stitched ply design, (Sorry I'm terrible with names), we had a good blether and then they went to look at what the weather/waves were like on the North end of the Island
lots of whitecaps, which they soon found, and returned back to the relative peace of the sheltered side of the Island.
They carried on back to have lunch, and Josh and I decided we'd pack up, load the canoe, and paddle around to their cove, for a final wallaby hunt.
Unfortunately by the time we got there the weather had taken a turn for the worse, actually the sotp guys were lashing their canoes together :Thinkingo, so we decide to head back to Balmaha.
"Bit of a handful" doesn't really cover it, it was a wild ride, bit scary at points, but I'd do it again in a second, but with a sail
I do get seasick occasionally, normally only on serious seas, but all the weight (not just Josh
) was at the back, so every movement seemed to be magnified at the front, that and the fact if you mis-timed your stroke the paddle missed the water
it wasn't much fun up the front.
I ran my gps on the way back, the route is interesting to say the least, I'll need to reinstall some software, but I'll see if I can post it.
Shewie, you would have loved it mate.
Cheers
Stephen
