From Nadgee to Bass Strait Saturday, March 31, 2007

We had a great few days in Nadgee Wilderness Reserve, and the surrounding National Park, being shown around by some of New South Wales finest paddlers! The area is characterised by beautiful red sandstone cliffs separated by a few golden sandy beaches. Everything is covered by gum & tea-trees and it's a beautiful coastline. One of the highlights for me was paddling 1km up the Merrica River to get fresh water. The calm narrow estuary was enclosed by short cliffs covered in trees, we could see oysters growing on the sandy bottom & wild orchids growing above and it was very serene and beautiful - a really wild place. We had it to ourselves as it's part of a wildernes reserve with limited visitor access.

Thanks a lot of Laurie for organising it, and to Laurie, Stu Trueman, Dave Winkworth & Paul Loker for making it a memorable and fun trip.

We're now staying with Laurie for the weekend and he's then kindly driving us down to Port Welshpool ( appropriately enough for Alun!) where we'll start the trip from on Monday or Tuesday. This evening we're going to watch Laurie's wife, Nadia, playing her drums on the beach as part of a local event which should be great!

Laurie & Pete Provis are kindly lending us 2 kayaks for the Bass Strait crossing - they are called Nadgee Kayaks and are one of the most popular kayak in Australia for expeditions. They look good to us and it saves us a huge amount of expense and logistical hastle to be able to use them. Laurie's just bought the company so hopefully we'll be able to raise awarness of the kayaks a bit for him with our expedition - not that he needs it as the waiting list for Nadgee Kayaks is already huge! It will be interesting to use a different boat as I'm nearly always in my trusty Explorer on trips. Alun & I are both very grateful for the loan of the boats! Check Lauries Nadgee Kayaks website out -- it will be live very soon.www.nadgeekayaks.com.au

I hope to be posting daily podcasts as we cross the Bass Strait. There should be a map on the website so you can follow along. We're crossing on the Eastern side via a chain of islands. The total distance is about 370km and the longest crossing is about 67km. There are fairly strong cross currents and often strong winds in this area so it will be a good challenge. I'm looking forward to exploring the islands along the way which I'm told are beautiful. We're not in a rush to complete the trip and expect it to take us 2-3 weeks. It better take us that long as we have a huge pile of food to get through!! Watch this space!!