Open ocean ... the author's kayak enroute to Burrewarra Point Lighthouse.Credit: Ben Stubbs
We stroke through the estuary, letting the tide pull us out towards the open ocean. My kayaking guide, Josh Waterson, pauses behind me for a moment as a finger of lightning escapes across the hills. It's followed seconds later by a burst of thunder that cracks like a stockman's whip. I was told when I was young that each second between lightning and thunder indicates one kilometre between the storm and where you stand. On the next crack I count to only two.
We are at Mossy Point, hoping to paddle to the Burrewarra Point Lighthouse a few hours north, though Waterson is a little jumpy.
"Lightning will hit the highest thing on the water if it comes this way," he says.
He raises his eyebrows. "Two fellas in a kayak."
If the lighting moves towards us, I'm under instruction to paddle to the nearest beach as quickly as possible.
We move through the mangroves in our two-man expedition kayak as stingrays glide below us. The conditions are calm behind the shelter of Broulee Island to our right. Waterson says this was one of the first places settled on the South Coast and it was the region's first shipping port. It was used to ship granite to Sydney, much of which was used in the buildings on George Street and the pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
We leave the shelter of the bay at Long Nose Point and almost immediately the northerly wind kicks up, knocking us across the waves as we paddle towards the protected area. Beyond Broulee Bay the water is part of an 85,000-hectare sanctuary, allowing the marine life to thrive undisturbed. Once we pull away from the coastline, though, all I can see is the inky black ocean. The sensation of being in the open sea in a thin plastic boat gives me a shiver as I recall that sharks can mistake kayaks for animals and take a nibble. Waterson is a born-and-bred local and he assures me that in all his years of paddling here he's never even seen a fin.
We settle into a rhythm, letting the waves scoop on to our spray skirts as we work across the water, paddling like dual windmills towards Guerilla Bay. In front of the kayak a dark patch of water seems to boil, until a salmon jumps in a feeding frenzy. The school of salmon is crowding in on a group of baitfish and the water resembles an over-stuffed fish tank in Chinatown.
We pause for a moment to let my aching shoulders rest. The water is quiet now, though in September Waterson regularly spots southern right, humpback and killer whales around his kayak on their migrations south.
The wind strengthens and we steer the kayak across the rolling swell out from Guerilla Bay - named for the artillery that once lined the cliffs around Square Head and Observation Point in the 1940s. Even though this sleepy South Coast hamlet seems far removed from trouble, a Japanese submarine slipped into the mouth of nearby Moruya River in 1942 and attacked a fishing trawler, killing three of the crew.
As we concentrate on the task at hand, a jagged channel of rocks blocks our route along the coast, creating a narrow passageway. The swell pushes us towards the channel and waves batter the exit. Like kids timing their jump into a skipping rope, we wait for the channel to drain before entering at the right moment. A lone cormorant watches from the rocks, goading me into action.
The channel empties and we thrash our paddles through the water as the swell rises. We skim past the end of the channel just as a dark blue vein of water lifts up and splinters against the rocks, where we were paddling only moments before. The rocks here have wrecked many ships, one of the reasons the lighthouse was constructed above us on Burrewarra Point.
From the channel we paddle into an isolated gravel cove and drag our kayak up on to the sand. The only way up to the lighthouse is to climb the cliff using the frayed ropes left by fishermen. Tracking through a tangled casuarina forest we disturb the odd wallaby and black cockatoo on our way to the point. The lighthouse isn't the sort of picturesque beacon you'd see on a postcard; it looks like a concrete washing machine - functional rather than beautiful. We scramble out to the furthest sliver of land to see the chewed coastline towards Batemans Bay. Out from Jimmy's Island and Malua Bay are the Tollgates, two humps in the ocean named by Captain Cook during his east-coast voyage.
Back at the cliff, Waterson tells me not to trust the ropes on my descent. I use my common sense and maintain three points of contact on the trail, ensuring that my backside is always firmly attached to the dirt as I slide back to the beach.
Waterson and I attach our spray skirts, watching the clouds cluster like a bruise above us. In the distance I see a flash of lightning on the hills around Mogendoura. I count silently and it's 10 before I hear the thunder. Waterson nods - we're in the clear and we drag our kayak back through the gravel before the weather closes in again.
Ben Stubbs travelled courtesy of Tourism NSW.
FAST FACTS
Getting there
Broulee and Mossy Point are on the Eurobodalla Coast, a four-hour drive south of Sydney on the Princes Highway.
Region X Sea Kayaking has a range of kayaking adventures, ranging from 2½-hour tours ($60) to three-day sea-kayak adventures ($699). The Burrewarra Lighthouse trip ($95) can be done as part of a breakfast tour and will take four to five hours depending on kayaking ability and fitness. Phone 0400 184 034; email info@regionxrivers.com.
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