Stopped near Farewell Spit near the lighthouse, after covering 58km. Hurrah! West coast done, but must still round the spit tomorrow. Lovely coast before the spit with a lot of seals. Had a long carry with the boats though!
Farewell Spit lighthouse by James Shook – taken from WikiPedia[alex on behalf of jc]
S40°38.87' E172°25.29'
80km paddle with a South Westerly wind picking up late in the afternoon. Saw a shark only 10 metres away! Landed on a tiny beach. There’s a cosy hostel here so we treated ourselves to a bed! Hope to round the spit tomorrow.
[alex on behalf of jc]
Canoed down at Karamea. Big surf all the way down so pushed on and landed on the beach. Barry still managed to loop in a big set. The paddle was ripped from his hands, but luckily was on a leash so no swim needed!
[alex on behalf of jc]
BARRY ROUNDING PUYSEGUR POINT
BARRY WITH HIS 15KG GROUPER, AND SIMON, DOUG & ALASTAIR
We’ve spent another day at Harriet and Phil’s house in Westport as the swell this morning looked pretty intimidating and the forecast said it was 4 metres again. Last night we made the mistake of looking at the place we planned to land next on Google Earth and counted 4 or 5 few lines of surf rolling into the beach with a couple of lines at the end of the river mouth. It suddenly didn’t feel quite so ‘bombproof’ as a sheltered landing and we decided to wait until tomorrow to paddle there when the swell is meant to be lower ( just 7 or 8 feet!). Maybe the google earth photo was taken during a northerly swell and it would have been fine,,, but then again maybe not. Either way, we are going to paddle tomorrow and take on whatever surf landing we find ( or don’t find). Today Brian took us for a drive to Charleston where we went for a walk along the cliffs. The surf looked quite manageable at times, but there were some massive sets coming through and smashing up the cliff faces. At least the gaps mean that if there is surf on the landing tomorrow, we should be able to time it so we land in a lull. We also went for a bike ride around town today and chilled out a bit.
Swedish kayaker Babs is about 150km ahead of us also stuck by big surf, check out her website here She’ll hopefully be able to get away tomorrow aswell, although it would be fun if we manage to catch up with her before she finishes her circumnavigation in Picton in the next week or 2.
Thanks again to Harriet & Phil, Brian and the other nice people we’ve met in Westport.
