2000/02 Australia trip - Devils and kayaks |
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Wednesday January 26th
I’d found a brochure for a guided kayak trip and that was on the agenda for the afternoon, so we thought we’d spend the morning at the Tasmanian Devil Wildlife Refuge. It turned out to be dark and wet, but that just meant we had most of the place to ourselves. Not that you get much in the way of crowds here. The island of Tasmania is a 
triangle with 200 mile sides, but there’s only a few hundred thousand people and most of those are in a few towns and cities.
We got a good view of the devils. They are small and stocky, about the size of an 
English bulldog with a black body and red ears. They don’t move very fast, a kind of slow canter, but they only eat dead or half-dead things, so they don’t need speed. They have big, amazingly powerful jaws, strong enough to eat everything, bones, skin, teeth.
The refuge also had walk-through aviaries with various parrots, cockatoos, kookaburras, and ducks, as well as some of the more rarely seen marsupials like quolls and golden possums.
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Devils Wildlife Park (24.13) |
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We stopped off at the Bush Mill Railway for lunch though we didn’t have time to ride the train. We drove to Stewarts Bay to meet our guide Mark from the Baidarka Experience. He showed up a little late with a wreck of a car, jammed full of equipment, and with two beautiful kayaks up on the rack.
He announced himself as the smallest tour company in the world. He used to be an anesthesiologist, working in the Isle of Man, USA, and Tasmania, but gave it up to be a full-time kayaking guide. He obviously enjoys what he is doing, but is in no danger of getting rich. We were his only customers for the day, and he spent about seven hours with us. We got our money’s worth, as he delivered a constant commentary on the region’s history, biology, weather, politics, as well as instruction in kayaking.
He spent an hour getting us ready for the trip, putting on woolen longjohns, drysuit, lifejacket, boots, spray skirt, and then we carried the kayaks to the sea. Sandie and I were sharing a 24 foot racing double. Our first drill was to show that we could capsize a kayak in deep water and get out and recover. As instructed, I tipped the kayak over so we were now upside down under water, and we undid our spray skirts, kicked out of the kayak, surfaced, turned the kayak upright, started the bailing pump, and climbed back in. 
Sounds easy? It wasn’t! Climbing back in causes the kayak to tip over and start the process all over again. Eventually we got it right and were able to move on to do some paddling. Sandie still thinks I set the whole thing up, but Mark says he always does this so that people know they can recover, and don't panic if a wave turns them over. I think Sandie expected a great white shark to take her head off while she was upside down.
We paddled into Carnarvon Bay with a view of the Port Arthur prison ruins, around The Isle of the Dead where they buried the convicts, and across the bay to the fish farms to watch the salmon jumping, about 10 miles in all. The bay is well protected by green hills and cliffs, so it was mostly calm as well as scenic, with just the occasional squall bringing in some rain and waves. We’d hoped to see some penguins as they feed in this area, but we saw clouds of tiny red crayfish instead. Mark said his next customer was a biologist who was coming to see the crayfish so he hoped they’d stay around. He was interested in our Folbot, having heard of them but never tried one. He wasn’t too impressed by our paddling technique, but was happy that we managed to keep up a reasonable speed. We finished up with homemade bread and zucchini soup on the beach, after which we returned to White Beach and collapsed into bed.