Breakfast at Judy's

We had a great send off from Cape Barren Island with fresh coffee, muesli, warm toast and a lift with all our gear down to our kayaks. We were on the water at 9.30, very civilized indeed. It was high tide and the water was glassy and so clear that we could see the bottom, not unusual around these parts. The sky was overcast but it was still a beautiful day. We stopped at Preservation Island for lunch, this is where we had planned to camp the previous night before meeting Judy. Then we started making our way to Clarke Island for the night when the wind picked up, before we knew it, we were punching into a 20 knot headwind coming from the south. Thankfully there wasn't much fetch as we were fairly close to the islands but this still made hard work for us for the next couple of hours and by this time, we had a serious chop to deal with. The wind was relentless.
The rock formations around here are really something else. It's as if some fancy landscape artist has carefully placed all of these massive granite boulders throughout Bass Strait and then went crazy with orange and a yellowy green paint. Then a gardener came along and planted all sorts of weird and wonderful plants amongst these rocks followed by a sculptor who started carving animal figures but never completed any. We saw one rock, the size of a two story house that looked like an unfinished rhinoceros. As you can see, I've been quite moved by this landscape. Tonight's camp on Rebecca Bay is our last camp on Bass Strait before crossing Banks Strait in the morning and we are all feeling mixed emotions. We are all looking forward to getting home to our families but we will definitely miss paddling around these magnificent islands.