With most of the season’s racing complete it is time for Charms and I to dedicate our full attention to some OC1 kms!
Last weekend we decided to test out a new location and paddle down a 26km stretch of coast along the eastern suburbs, from Watson’s Bay to La Perouse. This was a route I had wanted to check out for a long time having spent considerable time running along the magnificent cliff tops between Clovelly and Bondi, and around South Head and the Gap.
It was a testing trip, with little swell to play with, but a consistent 10-15kt NE playing havoc with the ama and creating breaking wind waves that threatened to swamp you either first time around, or on their way back from reflecting from the clifflines. It is a spectacular coastline, however, and I made sure to tick off the well know beaches – Bondi took a while to appear, but then Bronte, Clovelly and Coogee went past in quick succession.
We stopped to test out our new Roctane Gu’s, purchased at DB Nationals the weekend before and with some extra energy and caffeine continued down towards Long Bay, where the wind moved behind us a bit more, and gave us a great stretch of runners.
Daylight savings had ended the week previously, and at around 4pm the sun was sitting low in the sky. We were starting to wonder if we had mis-timed our trip. It was unfamiliar territory, and we weren’t exactly certain how much further there was to go. Luckily, I had taped a map of our intended route to the deck of my canoe and after a quick consultation I promised Charms we just had to go “past that next pointy headland”. A little be further past the pointy headland, I caught a glimpse of the distillation columns at Caltex’s Kurnell refinery. We had made it! Turn right before the refinery.
All up, the journey took us about 3hrs to cover the 25.5km. It was a solid paddle, but we definitely feel ready for Hawaii now!
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