# NSW: (half of) A south coast paradise - My first overnighter



## Chemacky (Nov 30, 2011)

So when I bought the Kingfisher off Gee, I knew I was onto something that had the potential to take me, and a lot of gear, to a camping spot I know of. A camping spot where it's rare to see any other people, even during the peak holiday periods. A place where there's nothing but you, a few mates, and a seemingly infinite wealth of seafood topped off with a beautiful freshwater supply just a 10 minute paddle away. The rocks are covered in oysters, many of them bigger than your palm... and just about anything underwater and hard enough to support mussels is riddled with them. There are abalone and lobsters, as well as excellent line and spear fishing. Dolphins are regular visitors along this section of the coast and I have seen them in pods of up to 30 or 40 or so swimming past. Seals are often rudely awoken by your presence on the rocks, and are often very inquisitive when swimming passed some of the splendid rock fishing available. This campsite that I know of is literally as close as you can get to paradise in my eyes - an absolutely delightful area of the NSW sapphire coast.

After a lot of serious planning, I finally got a few of my mates organised and the eight of us set off in a two car convoy on the 4 hour drive to the car parking spot... I swear someone was singing something about Bonnydoon. Being a group of 5 guys and 3 girls all in our early to mid 20's, we were perhaps a little on the ...disadvantaged side in terms of respectable and appropriate camping gear for either kayak or hike camping, however, we were certainly the exact opposite when it came to excitement and determination. This was not going to get in our way.

To get to our little slice of paradise for the weekend, three of us were going to paddle around the headland and into the inlet, while the other five were hiking up and over the ridge of the headland. Previous to this trip, I had not had suitable equipment to surf launch and make my way around the headland, and as such had always hiked in. Unfortunately, this seriously limits what you can take with you especially in terms of fishing gear (a yak being a big part of mine!) and is also a lot harder work and not as fun. However, I'd never been out in the open ocean on a kayak before, let alone surf launched one! To say I was a little nervous might be a slight understatement - I was checking the swell predictions hourly for the entire week leading up. I even brought a bike lock in case it was too hard and I had to cart off the yak into the wilderness and lock it up to a tree.

As the time D-Day approached it looked as if the swell was going to max at around 1.2m... which seemed doable to me and so eased my mind slightly. However, in a last minute addition to our squad was someone who had done a reasonable amount of sea kayaking and offered up some useful advice on techniques, and just general calmness with their confident attitude.
We arrived at the parking spot, and I quickly ran the 25 metres down the path, through the tress and out onto our launching beach. A big grin stretched from ear to ear. Not only are we here and ready to go... but the surf is tiny! I watched on as waves no higher than my knees broke on the shore... lucky I did all that worrying!

We got all the gear out of the cars parking the heavier smaller stuff into the three yaks, and the others packed everything into big hiking backpacks to be taken on foot. It was a tight squeeze, but we managed everything. It even appeared as though I'd not forgotten anything! That's a first! Everyone pitched in to carry the fully loaded kayaks the 50 or so meters down to the shore in anticipation for launch. So we all heaved an hoed and carried the now significantly heavier 'slices of heaven bringers' down the water... which in the half an hour it took us to pack had significantly changed! The waves were frequent and much, much larger - at least twice the size! My recently acquired confidence crumbled and melted into an awkward mix of nervousness and excitement. I instantly needed to wee... a feeling I remember all too well from just before a race at the primary school athletics carnival... Oh well, you've packed the yak, it's too late to back out now. You're going. Stop being a little sook.

The walkers eagerly set off, as we knew it would take them around twice as long to get there as it would us. other two boys were in SIK's and so it was decided, just as the others disappeared into the distance, that I would help them to launch first as it would be easier for me to do it on my own. Just what I wanted to hear as a first timer...
We pushed out the first guy, and we timed it well, he popped just over the crest of each of the waves before they broke and was out behind the surf zone in less than 30 seconds. That looks easy I thought. I pushed out the next guy, who also got out with relative ease... which was to be expected as he was the experienced one. Next was me. Little old me. In the big old ocean. All on my lonesome. Shit. I turned around to straighten up my yak and get ready for launch... just in time to spot a group of 6 or so people watching my every move from the path through the trees. Great, an audience to watch my pathetic attempt at calling me flutter about nervously trying this for the first time. I was just watching the waves carefully trying to work out any sort of pattern to the madness and define my plan of attack when one of the men from the audience popped up next to me. "You need a push mate? Looks like your mates needed it." I jumped about 10 foot in the air... way to scare the shit out of me mate. "yeah, that'd be great" I mumbled in my most manly and deep but least scared voice. "Cheers bud." I jumped in the yak completely forgetting about the plan of attack and he gave me a running shove off into the waves.

I knew I had to paddle like hell so that's what I started to do. Of course I'd forgotten to fold down the front mounted scotty rod holders on extender arms, so my first two or three strokes went straight between them and the yak and touched no water. Shit I said as I watched the first wave approaching. This was going to be bad timing. I slightly adjusted my stroke and got two decent paddles in before CRASH! The first wave broke just as the tip of my hull touched it. It completely drenched my and I watched as the scuppers tried desperately to drain all the water. It wasn't happening quick enough for my liking. Am I going to sink a SOT? Is it possible? It certainly looks like I'm going to do it. Maybe I'll be the first man to do it. I continued to paddle like hell, every fourth stroke hitting rod holder rather than water. The next three waves all smashed me, and the amount water in the kingfisher thankfully stayed at a similar level. Maybe I'll be alright. In less the 30 seconds I was out of the surf zone to join my mates. I was wet, but I made it. And not once did I feel as though the boat was tipping, or even turning off course. In reality, it handled the surf like a champ... despite my awful launch timing. And to top it off my nervous wee feeling was gone... now it was just pure excitement! Paradise here we come!
We paddled at a very leisurely pace, and it took us around half an hour to make it to the back of the surf zone for the re-entry. The swell had been small (I was assured by my experienced compatriot), but this was definitely no estuary! Now came the surf landing part... which to be honest I'd kind of thrown out of my mind as I was too busy worrying about the launch. I thought this would be a bit easier as there is an inlet here... though it's very small, and sometimes closes completely for an hour or so at lowest tide. The tides were kind to us (having not planned anything being a group of inexperienced young whipper snappers!), and the surf was also kind -being very little with plenty of breaks. We made a break for it trying to stay as far from the rocks as possible, yet still be online to get into the inlet (which runs along the far side of the surf beach into paradise). I elected to watch the experienced guy do his thing and try to emulate that.... and have a little break so I could paddle hard the whole way. He assured me that no matter how hard I paddled a wave would eventually catch me and turn me sideways and at that point I should lean into the wave and use my paddle as leverage. I watched him paddle off and get turned sideways a couple of times, but not once did he flip. I hope I can do that!

I put the rod holders into the forward position for this part, and quickly begun my re-entry paddling as hard as I could. I looked back every 10 or so big strokes and for a while there it looked as though I was going to outrun them all.. but alas eventually one that was a-brewin' caught up to me. It wasn't big by any means, but I still prepared myself to go into the drink. The wave caught me and almost instantly I went sidways. I quickly leaned in towards the wave, and before I could even get my paddle into it for the leverage, it was under me and I popped over the top. Still in my yak... up the right way... what the?! I quickly turned her around and started paddling hard again. It's slow getting a fully loaded yak going on water that's rushing out, and as such before I could get far another wave caught me. Exactly the same thing happened! "I'm invincible!" I thought. I was caught in a similar manner by two or three more waves before we made it to the protected waters of the inlet. I was so excited to have completed a more or less incident free launch and re-entry, on top of the fact that we had actually arrived at our destination that I lead the charge up the inlet towards the camp spot. I paddled and paddled... and grinned and grinned. Looking into the water at the oyster laded rocks, and a couple of mussel infested submerged trees, I spotted plenty of mullet, some easily into the 30cm's... as well as some very small bream and black fish. This is going to be a great weekend I thought to myself! Just me and my... "Watch my line mate!" I was startled to turn around and see a fisherman perched between two rocks with a line in the water. I looked down again and my nose was already crossing it. Whoops. "Sorry mate, I didn't really expect anyone here..." I said. "No worries... there's four of us here till Monday. We're camped just around the corner." What I really heard though was "We're camped in your spot and here to ruin your weekend!". As it turns out where we camped was just as good, and the four guys were very inoffensive and in fact we traded fishing stories we'd had throughout each day, as well as on previous trips. They were a great bunch of guys really, and I was more than happy to share such a beautiful place with them.

So as we pulled up to edge of the estuary to inspect another camping spot, we hit the jackpot first up. Two seats (read wood stretched between two rocks) around a nicely made camp fireplace. There was plenty of flat ground for tent pitching, and quick access to the water's edge for dish cleaning... Not much more you can ask for. It was starting to get dark by now so we quickly started pitching tents and blowing up sleep mats, and all helped out erecting the large tarp in case it rained. By now it was really starting to get dark, and the walkers had arrived. We built a fire and cooked some dinner. It was a little topsy-turvey as no one had really coordinated food purchasing. There were a lot of additions for seafood meals brought, and not too many other meals, and since we hadn't any seafood yet, many of us ate instant noodles. I turned in pretty early, eager to get up first thing in the morning and start fishing!

Day 1 in paradise:

Of course, as per usual for me on the eve of an imminent fishing trip in which I have high hopes for, I tossed and turned in bed unable to sleep. Eventually I drifted off into a hazy sleep filled with dreams of monstrous beasts with a burning hunger for plastic and trebles lurking in the deep right outside my tent. I decided not to set an alarm as I felt it might be a little out of place being so far from any real civilisation, but awoke reasonably early and stumbled out of my tent with all the grace of a beached whale. I had been instructed to wake the only other keen fisherman of the group, who replied with "yeah... I'm not coming anymore..." It didn't offend as not only am I used to this, but he was either going to have to take the plunge and borrow some lures from me (and take a little bit of baby sitting) or gather some bait... and I didn't really have the time for either. So after a quick black coffee as I couldn't find the milk, I rigged up my rods, and packed the yak for my first sesh. Of course I had forgotten that I needed to take the water bladders up to the freshwater source and fill them up before I could go fishing... so that dampened the mood a little... but hey I can spare half an hour of my weekend... and who's gonna stop me trolling on the way? No one!

I loaded the bladders, chucked the sebile koolie onto my rod sporting 10lb leader just in case a monster really was about, and then a predatek minmin on the the 6lb. Paddled out into the deeper channel, threw the two lures over my shoulder and started paddling. I turned the sounder on... only to find I mustn't have plugged it in right or it was broken. I assumed the first one and decided to fix it when I stopped to fill the water. I paddled slowly against the current, taking the views in. I stopped to swat a horsefly that'd been following and bothering me since I started the journey when... WHACK! The sebile koolie was absolutely smashed by something. I'd never had a hit this big, and the drag was screaming off! I quickly reached forward, tightened the drag a little and started my battle. It was fighting a lot harder than anything I've ever caught... or landed anyway. I couldn't be a flathead... the runs were too frequent and strong. I really honestly didn't know what to think of this. The current was running out fairly strongly, and was pushing me right towards the side. Far too close to oyster encrusted rocks that I could already see smirking at my 10lb leader, and practically in hysterics at the 6lb braid it was tied to. I was desperately trying to fight the fish and the current, constantly using pathetic one hand paddling techniques as well as holstering the rod for brief moments. In the end I managed to get the fish yak side and wow! After unfortunately mistaking it for my first Jew and getting way too excited, it was actually the biggest tailor man has ever seen! Which, excusing the gross overstatement, was also pretty exciting. It was pinned in the side of the face by 5 of the 6 hooks available, so there was little chance of a bite off, and hopefully it throwing the hooks... or so I thought. After 4 or 5 failed attempts to get the lip grips into its mouth, one last major spaz out saw the fish remove each of the 5 hooks from its skin, almost certainly easier than I could have done it with pliers and swam off... not without a cheeky grin and a couple of big kicks on the surface that absolutely drenched me. Just to rub salt into the wounds. I estimate that it must have run close to 70cm, but of course, that's just 'another boat ramp story' for me to tell the grandkids.

I cursed and paddled off into the sunrise still trolling leisurely, still fishless but with a nice sized horsefly bite on my leg (now with added salt from the fish escapee), as I turned the first of the two corners to get to the fresh water, the slight wind that was blowing closer to the mouth dropped out completely, and it turned to an absolute glass out. The current had slowed significantly in this section too, and with the section I was paddling becoming increasingly shallow and oyster laden, I elected to reel in my trolling lines and paddle the rest of the way. Of course I spotted some very fishy looking structure along the way and couldn't resist but to throw a blade around them as I very easily bulked out this 10 minute paddle into an adventure that could very well turn out to last several hours. There was no interest in my blade from anything worth mentioning, but nearly every cast saw a school of 10-15cm blackfish following the lure all the way to the boat, and often then joining the school that had followed the last cast before they slowly cruised back off to whatever they were doing before my hunk of metal entered their lives. I like to think that I, single-handedly, brought many previously separate blackfish ethnicities together doing this. And in the process absolutely shattering the apparent apartheid rule enforced by the whiting - who were also cruising about in numbers (wow, what an awful pun. I must be getting old). Licking my lips at the thought of whiting fillets, I decided to stop casting and actually paddle the distance to the water, fill up and return to base camp, before I again unleashed the sebile koolie on the world's biggest tailor again. I assume that if I learned anything from my last Tuross outing that this fish will almost certainly hit the lure again in the same spot if I troll it past in a similar manner. Then after I catch that fish maybe I'll finally crack the whiting on the surface over the flats nearer the mouth. Maybe I'm being a little cocky... but hey, if there's anywhere to do it... it's here!

I paddled all the way to the first little waterfall (about 50cm high) and anchored up the boat. I pulled out the water bladders and walked just above this waterfall to fill up with slightly tannin stained fresh water. We never boil this water, and have never had an issue. It also barely has any taste, so it's just about the perfect supply. I packed them back into the yak and headed back downstream to start my seafood assault.

As soon as the water became deep enough to chuck out the koolie I did. I still had to judge this by a guess, since I'd forgotten to check the sounder while I was filling the water. No matter, I've got allllllll weekend for this, and the water needs to go more or less straight back to camp as the others will be getting up soon. As I was trolling along there was little interest in the lures, and I had to lean forward every now and again to pull the line a little or let some more out or whatever seems to be required when the lure stops its action briefly. All the while hoping there was no weed at all attached to the trebles or anything. Eventually I rounded the corner and was heading straight for the spot of "humunga-dunga" which is what I'd dubbed the tailor in my head. A wave of excitement rushed over me, and as I paddled passed I looked back to watch the lures enter the zone. It was as if on cue... WHACK.. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. The koolie shot off again. Could it be? A second shot at humunga-dunga? It was a battle alright. The fish felt just as big. I was having the same issues with the current, and really wished I had some peddle power for this fight. I finally got a look at the fish... and it's a decent Jew! How Exci.... Shit. It's actually a tailor... a big tailor. How could you make the same mistake again you idiot. Anyway, it looked slightly smaller than humunga-dunga. Either way, this was now dinner. Or lunch. Or both. Eventually I tired the fish sufficiently in open water that I felt comfortable enough to loosen the drag a little and paddle over to a small island nearby. I got there and after a last couple of half-assed runs the fish was dispatched and stored under the hull.

By this time the others were almost certainly going to be up, so I'd better paddle back and deliver them water. And of course, show off my fish as if it was nothing. One of the boys had already gone out and collected a large amount of oysters, so these became breakfast, and with them and another coffee in the belly, I was out fishing again.









A sample of the oysters available in paradise!

Before setting off this time, I fixed the sounder wiring slightly, and it lit up with gusto. Maybe I'll head back to humunga-dunga HQ (HDHQ) and see what else I can pull out of that area I thought. I chucked on koolie as well as a large Mojiko brand deep diving minnow I'd bought from anaconda for about $3 during one of their sales. It looked cheap. I didn't have high hopes for it, but right near HDHQ it was smashed. Unfortunately I was a little closer to the edge than I'd have liked, and ran into problems. The fish was very powerful, and one of it's runs got in amongst the oyster encrusted rocks. I tried not to pull too hard, but I was busted off in a matter of seconds. Well, at least the lure was cheap. What should I chuck on next... hmmm. .. I looked at the sounder and I was in 3.1m of water. What have I got that dives to that depth..... a rusty old pink halco poltergeist... I'll give that a crack. I chucked it on, and got about 30m before it fouled up. It didn't start it's pulsing action with some shor sharp yanks of the rod, so I decided to do it the manual way. I started reeling it in as quick as I could. The lure was a long way back, probably about 40m or so, and it quickly rose to the surface as I wound. I could tell by the way it was spinning that one of the trebles had caught up in the little clip it was attached to. How annoying I thought. How does that even ha..... SPLASH!! CRACK!! WHACK!! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!! What the f.... something had (very stupidly) smashed the fouled up lure off the surface and was making a case for itself. A few hairy moments on the 6lb saw another very good tailor yakside. My eyes lit up as I realised I now had enough food to feed the lot of us tonight. I quickly dispatched the tailor and headed back home to tell the others that I was now alpha male. When I pulled into camp, I could see the other boys in the estuary with their spearing gear. And one of the girls was on the beach with her camera. She snapped this as I got the fish out from under the hull:









The smallest tailor of the day

I had a little rest and then paddled out to where the boys were spearing to ask how things were going. They weren't very interested in talking to me and so I paddled back in and thought I'd start getting lunch together. Instead I just had a lie down and a relax. Whoops. The boys came back with a small booty of blackfish, the largest going a respectable 38cm or so and tales of larger ones that of course got away. I offered to fillet up all the fish that we wanted filleted, while the others prepared to do the cooking. It was quickly discovered that we'd either left the frying pan at the parking spot or forgotten to bring it entirely. Either way, it wasn't here. After a short debate, we decided to fashion one out of foil and the folding oyster grilling thing we'd brought. I was a little sceptical, but was thoroughly surprised and impressed at just how well it worked. We had another seafood feast and gorged ourselves.









The make-shift frying pan at work.

When we were finally done and rested that familiar itch came again... "Maybe I'll just go for another fish then." And off I went! I paddled off and decided I was going to do a little bit of casting rather than trolling... but where. Maybe I'll have a crack at the whiting on the surface thing. I pulled out a small pencil type surface walker in clear colours. Almost identical to a lure I'd seen in an issue of FishLife detailing the technique. It must have been close to the highest tide of the day, and the wind had really picked up since this morning. I had a lot of access to downwind casting to a lot of territory, and my techniques resulted in a number of follows. Eventually I hooked onto a very small whiting, but I'm still unconvinced it had actually tried to eat the lure. Something about the strike just wasn't right. After nearly casting my arm off, and then shaking it off trying to get the perfect retrieve I admitted defeat. At least for now. Perhaps I will buy a longer floppier rod to make shaking the tip a little less demanding... I switched up to a squidgy bug on a resin head, and was slow rolling that across the surface. I'd seen bushy doing this on one of the squidgy vids and although he was chasing bream rather than whiting, he was smashing them. After about another half an hour of fruitless fishing I'd had enough and decided to head back to camp. We cooked up the remainder of the fish we'd caught that day for dinner, and yet again, feasted.
Exhausted from the day's events and early rise, again I went to bed early. And although I was still excited about the things to come tomorrow, this time I slept like a log.

Day 2 in paradise:

To be continued.... if anyone even got this far! I'll get it up as soon as I get time to write it. Uni has been very busy.


----------



## Yakaway (Jul 16, 2012)

What a great read, can't wait for part 2 ! Keep the trip reports coming !!
Cheers Pete.


----------



## kayakone (Dec 7, 2010)

I'm so glad it was no longer. It's 3.45 am and I'm meant to be going fishing. Can't wait for part two.


----------



## Salty Dog (Sep 18, 2005)

Sounds unreal Chemacky. I'll have to find my own paradise one day.


----------



## southcoastmatty (Jan 21, 2009)

Wow. Adventure time indeed. Enjoy it.
Scm


----------



## si75 (Feb 26, 2008)

Great stuff - looking forward to the next installment


----------



## Broseph (Dec 1, 2009)

okay, so I'm assuming a central canberra as the start, then lets add 4 hours at an average of say 90km\h, has to be coastal obviously, a few more clues and I might be able to find my own slice of paradise :twisted:

Great read, it's nice to know places like this still exist even if I don't know where they are or struggle to find the time to visit them


----------



## TheFishinMusician (Feb 5, 2007)

Great read!
Really enjoyed that i did, thanks for putting the time in. Sounds like a brilliant trip, looking forward to part 2


----------



## john316 (Jan 15, 2009)

Mr Chemacky...
if thats where I think it is--- theres a spot I have wanted to get to for a long time but I can't get the bride to do the ocean bit to get there with the yaks...

great read and I am more envious than you might know at the oysters

cheers

John


----------



## Chemacky (Nov 30, 2011)

Thanks for the kind words guys. I will get cracking on day two and three as soon as uni permits. But yeah, unfortunately I'm not all too keen to discuss exact locations of my paradise. Otherwise it'll end up like the rest of the world!

Bertros - there are a couple of really nice shots of the kingfisher, so you'll be all good there! Will update the pb's as I get a chance as well!


----------



## Booyah (Apr 26, 2009)

Great sounding trip! I was paddling back from that area once, quiet late into dusk. Paddling along feeling a bit uncomfortable being out so late by myself when I had something huge show up on the sounder below me. Followed straight under me for about 100m then disappeared. Couldn't see into the water because of the light but I'm sure it was a BIG shark, no dolphins or seals popped up. Shark shield gave me a little comfort. Be good to see the rest of the trip!


----------



## Ado (Mar 31, 2008)

More please. I know Uni is taxing, but that was just too good to leave us hanging. Forgo a Thursday night drinking session (well it was always Thursday night when I went ti Uni) and get writing.

One of the best trip reports I've read. Keep it up (when uou can).


----------



## theGT58 (Nov 1, 2011)

Fishing is more important than Uni. Part 2 pls! 

Thanks for that, had me riveted and reading the lot. Really good report. Definitely will have to find such a location on google maps shortly! Really like this kind of trip and just haven't got around to doing it yet.


----------



## Deefa (Dec 22, 2012)

Part two, please. It's only mid year at uni, no real excuse there.


----------



## theeightball (Dec 2, 2011)

great report! Cheered up my thu morn!
Chers
Gaz


----------

