And the light little boats we veritably wafted from the trailer now sink ever so slowly into the estuarine mud of Moulting Lagoon. It takes two staggering paddlers to carry them down to the water's edge where we don jackets and spray-skirts, all the while contemplating whether the kayaks will still float.
It's a small relief to gain buoyancy, especially when you fully expect to continue sliding down the muddy incline and disappear into the depths of the estuary; spirited away by the enormous ballast you spent an hour packing into the boat. Despite the load, the boats feel light and quick, responsive to a flick of a rudder and the pull of a paddle.
This is the first time I have travelled with my new girlfriend Mary. I'm anxious to try her out in the wild. It's an unusual impulse, born of some macho requirement to vet suitors by their prowess with a paddle or their ability to pee in the outdoors. In fact, with a long involvement in competitive rowing she's arguably better qualified for this sort of thing than I am. But how will she cope? How will she cope with me?
Freycinet Peninsula extends far into the distance, 30 km into the Tasman Sea from the east coast of Tasmania, Australia's smallest and only island state. On a topographical map it looks like a great arm desperately searching the sea for something it has lost. The Aborigines have gone, the whalers left with the whales, and the farmers and stonemasons who hoped to find their fortune, didn't, and left as well.
But for everything it has lost, Freycinet has retained that which makes it unique. Over the next week Mary and I will paddle the length of the peninsula, one of Tasmania's first national parks, tracing the history of the place and the people who have come here, and gone again.
Kayaking is an elegant form of travel, and the sweat of preparation is rapidly burnt off by a cool southerly that filters into the lagoon and the soporific lap of water against sand. Oystercatchers probe the golden sandbanks in their dinner suits and terns join the gentile party in bowler hats.
A swift outgoing tide rips our kayaks toward the mouth of the estuary, where river meets sea and the current meets the onshore wind. The result is a wide expanse of shallow white water where the waves stand up stiff and rolling, threatening to pitch us back from whence we came. I pull hard and the kayak ploughs on, punching clean through the spume to exit drenched, blinking the salt away in time to witness the next monster crash onto the spray skirt. Water leaks through the rudder release and trickles over my thigh - a kayak is a terrible place to have an itchy leg.
A few more strokes and we're clear of the bar, the water changing colour from gold to a deep blue. The 20-knot wind has abated to 8 and the seas are slight. It's easy going, the paddle is beginning to feel comfortable in my hands and the movement well-rehearsed.
Before us is Muirs Beach and the deep hook of Coles Bay dominated by a set of mighty granite monoliths known as The Hazards. Scientists reckon the granite was formed in the Earth's belly 400 million years ago when the first plants were beginning to gain foothold on land, the most advanced animals were fish, and Australia was part of the super continent Gondwanaland.
A few ice ages and half a dozen sea level alterations in the past several million years and viola. Geology had created an impressive monument to itself. The Hazards rise more than 400m straight out of the bay, rosy-pink headstones for long-forgotten seismic events. At the top they're balding and eroded smooth, with great stands of eucalypts around the base, spilling down to the water where I make camp on a secluded white beach called Honeymoon Bay.
Milky calm water laps against the granite outcrops the next morning. The kayaks cut through the sea like it is liquid Teflon, fine displacement waves peeling gently off the rudders, the swish-swish sound of powerful strokes, the cackle of birds in the trees and the barely discernable gurgle of the little vortices left in our wake.
As we paddle further down the peninsula, we leave all sense of civilisation, almost as if physically travelling back in time with every stroke. It was here that the settler Silas Cole burnt the aboriginal shell middens to make lime for mortar. And I sense a prescriptive irony in the fact that the first act of the first settler was to torch the only significant trace of a previous society, the accumulated detritus of 40,000 years of occupation, and sell the ashes for concrete to build their houses.
Here was also the first whaling operation on the east coast 180 years ago. Whalers spotted Southern Rights and put out into the bay in small sailing boats just a little longer than our kayaks to harpoon the leviathans. After striking a killing blow with a square-tipped harpoon they would tow the 96-tonne whales to shore and slaughter them on the beach. Unsurprisingly, fatalities among the whalers were common. The plunder was so intense that within 16 years the station had shut down. Tasmania had simply run out of whales.
Mary and I coast around Fleurieu Point and into a long Tasman swell rolling up the belly of Promise Bay. It's easy paddling with a little help from the current pushing me toward the hazy tip of the peninsula. But first, a short jaunt to stretch the kayak-cramped legs is in order and we catch a steep break onto Hazards Beach.
One can walk clear across the peninsula at this point in little more than 10 minutes. On the other side is Wineglass Bay, a sweeping beach of considerable length that it is listed among the top 10 beaches in the world. Fanning the imagination, it appears more or less the shape of a wine glass.
Back at Hazards, the surf's up. Mary seals the spray skirt neatly and grabs the paddle in time to meet the first wave of the set head on. I watch with a little trepidation as she disappears through a wall of spray. She's doing well for a chick, I think to myself, exercising my most chauvinistic inclinations - knowing I'd be crucified if I congratulated her in those terms.
Sitting on the sand, furiously struggling with my own skirt, I have time to contemplate the roaring foaming behemoth mounting before me. It's difficult to fit the undersize elastic around the oversized combing at the best of times, but with a big wave bearing down it's a tiny miracle when it snaps into place. Rolling white water engulfs the kayak deck and slaps me in the chest as I gain buoyancy.
Paddle wheeling, I rage through the teeth of the second wave, emerging soaked and exhilarated. The last is steep and curling, the bow pierces the face and the boat feels like it's standing on its end, with one frightened paddler hoping for all the world that he's not heading back to an undignified landing on the beach. But the kayak rocks seaward and I emerge through the breakers with my dignity intact.
A great portion of the night at Cooks Bay is spent battling wits with possums, and losing. They're in the pack and raiding the rubbish sack that was possum-proofed and precariously suspended. The siege continues into the early hours and I find myself running in my underwear through the pitch-black bush chasing a marsupial that has pilfered a plastic bag.
Dawn brings a crisp southerly that piques the hair on my forearms, makes wet paddle-hands turn numb and the sea around Weatherhead stand up stiff in protest. Tide whips around the point with waves crashing green over the foredeck and we slingshot into Schouten Passage, feeling horribly exposed until the breeze dies and the water goes eerie-calm. The tide is turning and the wind with it.
Schouten Island was named by Abel Tasman three and a half centuries ago. It has been occupied by Chinese prospectors sifting for tin and an unsuccessful farmer called Crockett who ran a sheep station before it was deemed to be good for nothing.
But one man's junk is another man's treasure. There's a long white beach, shady trees, a stunning outlook over the peninsula and a deserted campground a paddle-throw from the highwater mark. Idyllic. I feel like Robinson Crusoe.
Behind the beach is a leisurely saunter up a granite knob called Bear Hill. It quickly becomes a scramble on a shoddy track that gets steeper and rougher until we're climbing on all fours up a smooth granite incline exposed to the prospect of a 100m drop and a 25-knot southerly cold enough to pull the skin off my bones. But the view is incredible.
The red-granite platform, striped with eons of erosion, slopes down from the summit and eventually drops off. The vista extends out over olive-green eucalyptus trees and brilliant orange boulders to the blue trench that divorces Schouten from the mainland. Freycinet Peninsula reclines like a sleeping beast with great green limbs spread-eagled into the Tasman. The clear sky is striated with fine cirrus cloud, whipped into line by fierce jet streams and burnt orange by the setting sun. We'll have to watch the weather.
A northerly swell pounds the beach all night like war-drums but in the morning we awake to a brisk southerly. Too stiff by far to circumnavigate the island as we had hoped and we opt to sit it out for the day and head off tomorrow. So it's books and card games, futile attempts at fishing and frequent tea breaks. Crocketts must be the best beach in the world to find yourself marooned; a mountain to climb, a brackish stream to explore and granite sands of a grade ideal for cleaning pots.
At two o'clock, a well-worn fishing boat drops anchor in the bay. It's an odd thrill to see humans again and, in need of a weather report, I paddle out for a chat. The captain tells me they've run for cover with a gale brewing and adds the unnecessary suggestion, "You'd better get out while the going's good mate."
Back on shore we heave gear into dry-bags and pack down the tent in a frenzy. Fortunately there's less food to stow and we're off the angry beach in record time. My cellphone beeps with a text message from the kayak outfitter: "Goin 2 blow 4 nxt few days. NW up to 50 knots."
The bureau must have hit a panic button. But we are already on our way, stroking hard into the channel with a 20-knot southwesterly on our hip and wind waves licking over the gunnels. We have to run for our lives to cover the 30km of the last three days, paddling in just one afternoon, before all hell breaks loose.
A small pod of bottlenose dolphins joins us at the mouth of the bay, surfacing between the kayaks and playing under our paddles, eyeing us up. The presence of dolphins has always been portent of a good passage for sailors, and we need all the omens we can get. The wind is building steadily and the channel is unsettled with Tasman swells from the east and wind waves from the southwest.
After an hour of battling against a mysterious rip we turn the corner. With the wind at our stern we take a break for a snack on the run; ginger biscuits and water have never tasted so good. It's another three hours to Coles Bay at best and there is little daylight left. As we paddle across Promise Bay the southerly drops and leaves me with a terrifying feeling that it will shift northwest, build and leave us exposed, alone and probably awash. It's almost a relief when a grand gust of 25 knots resumes from behind us and we plug on to Fleurieu Point riding rising swells.
These kayaks are not whitewater boats, they're big flat-bottomed PVC blimps, packed with tents and gear. But a few solid strokes and a good deal of ooching has them flying down the faces of the rollers, whitewater raging at the gunnels and nose ploughing under. I lean back, with my weight on the paddle and rudder correcting hard, up to my waist in water and perilously close to submarining. The bow pops up and busts through the wave crest. Spray everywhere.
And so it continues, surging and surfing for half an hour through Coles Bay, arms burning, shoulders cramping. We finally make landfall on Muirs Beach at dusk, Mary catching a barrel all the way to the highwater mark, and lie exhausted on the cold sand watching daylight wane and the storm build.
I'm saturated and wrinkled, my legs are badly cramped and it's a struggle to straighten them. I'm cold. My fingers have lost all dexterity and one would have better luck tying shoelaces with your elbows. My hands are stuck in a paddle grip that could well last for days. Mary's in a similar state but sports a wide grin; I think she survived the ordeal better than I did.
Dripping and exhausted we stagger through the streets of the Coles Bay township as wind screams in the trees and dark clouds skate overhead. Locals offer know-it-all smiles. They recognise that distinctive paddlers shuffle because any kayaker who has been here has left like this - exhausted, exhilarated, and badly in need of a shower.
Postscript: I married her.
Hiking Freycinet Peninsula
Freycinet Peninsula is criss-crossed with some of the best walking tracks in the country and many are accessible from the favourite kayaking routes. Tack a walk on to the end of a day to stretch the legs, or take a day out from paddling to explore the national park on foot. Either way the lush hinterland is a rewarding experience.
The high-point of the peninsula is Mt Graham, a grand granite pinnacle a couple of hours' walk from the Cooks Beach campground. It's a brisk hike to the summit on flat tracks through stands of eucalyptus and all-fours scrambles over granite obstacles. Blue gums tower over black stumps where fire once raged and monumental lumps of silver granite stand in thickets of tiny white flowers.
At the top is an unforgettable panorama over the peninsula, Great Oyster Bay to the west and the infinite blue of the Tasman to the east. From here you can retrace your route of the previous day's paddling, see the iconic form of Wineglass Bay at the waist of the peninsula and Schouten Island where it finally disappears into the sea.
TRAVEL NOTES
Getting there: It's easy to access Tasmania from mainland Australia. Qantas offers daily connections to Hobart and Launceston via Melbourne and Sydney. Freycinet Peninsula is a couple of hours' scenic drive north of Hobart.
More information: The Freycinet Adventures team can furnish you with charts, safety equipment and more area knowledge than you could shake a paddle at. They have also just opened their Aqua Taxi service to pick-up and drop-off hikers from anywhere on the peninsula.
The guided Freycinet Expedition, a four-day kayak, walk and aqua taxi includes all equipment rental, tents, sleeping bags and fully catered meals. There is accommodation for every style of traveller in the frontier town of Coles Bay but, if you prefer tents, you can stay in the national park with a small camping fee payable at the National Park Headquarters at the park gateway.
Kayak hire: Modern, quick sea kayaks are available from Simon Stubbs at Freycinet Adventures. Be sure to book in advance over summer. You can kayak with an experienced guide or, if you've done it all before, just take the boats and go it alone.
Fitness: Kayaking can be enjoyed by anyone in good general fitness. Paddling experience is preferable, but not essential.
Booking: Contact your nearest Aussie Specialist Premier Agent on 0800 151 085 or talk to your local travel agent.
Useful websites: See discover-tasmania.com.au or australia.com.
