Day 3 and 4

Yesterday was a beautiful day. I managed to strain my wrist during the first two days of ripping southerly winds and as it was still howling out at sea, decided to knock up the kms by paddling down the Evans River. It was stunning. Today however we were up at 4.30am and back out on the high seas with a gentle NE wind following down the coast. After another shark sighting, a beach break at Brooms Head and some stronger winds, we ended up cruising past our goal of Minnie water and straight into Wooli. We hadn't meant to, but my map reading isn't that good and from 2kms out, it all looks the same. Still, it was 10km more than we meant to do so the paddle to Coff's tomorrow should be more manageable than the 62km we'd planned. There are strong NW winds at the sart of the day turning into SW in the afternoon which could be a shattering way to arrive, so we're getting up at 4am tomorrow instead to try and beat it. Yippee.

Putting some pictures on the blog now. Below are a couple of videos. ROB

The kayak schedule

Here's our planned paddle schedule. It includes the approximate distance to paddle, date and destination. I seem to have underestimated the total distance by about 100kms from when we first considered this trip - oops. Just means some big paddle sections and less room for bad weather. We've got a remote camping spot planned on Broughton Island, but the rest are mostly towns. The biggest section is 60km, which could cause some problems, but we've got a couple of rest days and some fat within the plan. Currently Christmas is at Coffs and New Year at Seal Rocks. I'm not sure that the celebrations at Seal Rocks are going to be that wild, but I like the idea of a bonfire on the beach and beers.

Bring on the coverage!

We got our first piece of coverage on the paddle this week - a whole half page at the front of the Wentworth Courier, a well read Sydney weekly. I place stories on big companies for a living so it's weird to be pitching yourself in, but great to be doing it for a charitable cause. If you're interested in reading the article then click on the title above.

Also really exciting news - we now have a logo, thanks to Brad Madge and his design skills. We just need to get T-shirts and caps made up now for all our adoring groupies. Really, if anyone can help us get 20 T-shirts printed in size 8 DD, please let us know.

Training's going good. I've had a couple of pre-work sessions during the week with Guy Leech and his hard core group of gnarly locals. Last weekend I had a couple or more beers in Manly stuffed a tenner in a pokie and won $700 straight up. I couldn't believe it. So I woke up the next morning pegged it down to the wharf and spanked it all on a second hand sit-on-top kayak for morning paddle sessions. It's now sitting padlocked to the side of the house. It's a big ol lump of plastic to be carrying down to the water and I almost fell down the stairs with the think balanced on my head on Tuesday, but so worth it once in. I live on Fairy Bower in Manly so I just paddled down the beach and back up to Shelly. Great thing to do as the sun's coming up.

You're back in the room

Whoohooo it's all kicking off again. We had a bit of a lull but we're back on track with firing out emails and picking up the phone. I'm starting training with Guy Leech on Tuesday, we're meeting the APCF ladies on Thursday, Scotty's done an exercise program which involves far too much protein powder and I've started trying to get us some media hype - plus this blog site now comes up on Google meaning it must have a few followers.

We did a 2 day kayak training course in Jervis Bay last weekend in the rain and the cold. It was good to get a feel for the kayaks and I suppose that getting cold and wet and capsizing and shivering for half the day is all a part of the game we've signed up for. I suppose. I was more imaging hot and calm Christmas days but we'd be lucky if that lasted for all 20 that we're planning to paddle. The carrot cake was good at Jervis.

Big thanks to Fluffy and the Shoalhaven lads and lasses that entertained us for the weekend. We'll be back for some more Yegas and a kareoke encore some time.

I'll put up some pictures soon although a lot of them have had to be deleted. R

Sunday morning

It's a beautiful Sunday morning - sunny, clear and there's waves in Manly...fantastic. I've already done some school work and I'm about to email a few people about the trip. Got to check my lotto tickets, get a coffee, go for a surf and then we're supposed to be doing a training session at Spit Bridge for a couple of hours. Scott's gone awol so I've charged up the ipod and am steeling myself for a bit of solitary paddling. It's stunning on a nice day, cruising past all the mosman boat houses and finding little beaches with waterfalls away from everything. I came back on Friday night after a few beers and started emailing some adventure blogs and kayak websites, so if you're reading this and received a badly spelt email, I apologise - the intention was good . Massive thanks to Ian at Meridian Kayaks www.meridiankayak.com.au who emailed back almost immediately. Ian I'll be calling you this afternoon. Thought I'd attach the below picture I took of nuns looking like penguins picnicing on Fairy Bower Beach during the recent World Youth Day celebration (Fairy Bower is so named because of the real local penguin population.) Happy Sunday.
R

Logo needed!

If anyone's got a crayon, mascara pen (it's a wand apparently), paint set or professional graphics mac program, could you have a go at making us a logo?  We need something funky and simple for the site, T-shirts, sausage sizzle banner, boat and front page of the Daily Telegraph.  Take 2 minutes to have a scribble and send us your ideas and designs to robinflowe@hotmail.com or scott.timbrell@hostville.com.au .  We'll put them up on the site for everyone to  vote on...unless they're rubbish.  Thanks R

The beginning

I work in a fun consumer PR company in Sydney called One Green Bean. Scott works on events in our sister creative ad agency Host. We both work big hours on pressured jobs and have sparse time for hobbies outside of school except surfing and letting the social kettle whistle. We all need more than work and beer sometimes so this project is about proving that however busy life is, there's always room for some adventure...and then more beer. About a month ago we were sitting in a pub in Surry Hills on a Sunday having just done a surreal press conference at the Sheraton with 5 WWE wrestlers and one diva in town for a live tour at Acer Arena. It's a varied and bizarre job that we have. Later that night we were in wrestling masks slugging bundies and shouting with a 17,000 strong crowd of red necks watching the Undertaker slam Batista whilst 6 year old kids screamed blue murder and middle aged men spat froth. Anyway, before this we'd been chilling out and sipping on skooners of carlton in a more civilised fashion when off hand Scott mentioned that he'd decided to paddle the east coast of Australia. A member of Scott's family was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer and this was his way of helping, coping and making a difference. This is where it all began.

(Below pic: Scott, Julian and Rob at Acer Arena on 15th June)