Hobart to Kitty Miller Bay
It’s 934 kilometers to Kitty Miller Bay, I’ve got half a tank of fuel, its dark, and I’m wearing thermals.
Above: The Ranger in her natural habitat. Shoutout to Ferg for welding up the rear bar in time for me to almost not have time to install it.
It’s 11pm, I’m parked in a no standing zone outside a mates place in North Hobart, and I’m using an angle grinder to try to fit a jerry-can carrier to the back of the ute. The neighbours may be annoyed, but not as annoyed as I am; leaving things to the last minute, again. I have to be on the road to Devonport in 4 and a half hours.
Its amazing what can be achieved with caffeine, nicotine, and spite. I make it to the wharf with time to spare, too preoccupied with keeping my eyes open to realise that I’ve finally reached some grand milestone. There’s an irony in the way that I have been using setbacks (a change in career, break ups, moving house, a blown engine, etc) as excuses that “the time isn’t right for a trip right now”, but I’m finally hitting the road with $600 to my name, an ambiguous contract extension, a coolant leak, a failed heater core, and no return ticket. I get off the Spirit, collect my gas bottle and spear gun, do my grocery shop, and climb into the back of the ute to sleep before I realise I’ve stepped foot in a wholly new chapter, and into wholly unfamilar territory.
It’s Easter, and Torquay shows it; the circus is in town. My first foray into mainland surfing in over a decade is strife with carpark Tesla’s with soft racks, men wearing suits, hasslers, snakes, and a lot of midlengths. I don’t know what I expected, but surfers here are unassuming, regular, and multifaceted. They drive normal cars, wear normal clothes, and work normal jobs; I can’t pick them from the crowd like I can back home. Corporate speak, Nike sneakers and Apple Watches are as jarring to me as a 4WD, op shop clothes, and a home-brewed haircut are to them. I eat hot cross buns in the carpark after snagging a few waves along a rock-bottomed point, before fixing my attention eastward.
The benefit of living the life of a Hobartian hermit is that you get to meet a whole lot of like-minded people as they pass through the southern city. Tasmania casts a wide net, but seems to catch specific types of people within its folds. Artists, creatives, musicians. Hikers, climbers, surfers. Those who love nature, animals, the envionment. Those fighting for change, justice, equality. People who love cold, clean air, and cool, crisp waters. You make friends with these people quickly as they get sucked into the vortex. And, when these friends move back home, or further away, you score couches, spare beds, and company all over the country. This is how I found myself parked in a driveway on the Mornington Peninsula, gaining some local insight on some nearby surf spots, and drinking too many coffees. Eilidh and Dan showed me around their own stomping grounds and check out the Emu Plains Market. The area feels like Byron Bay and Sandy Bay had an overpriced, linen-wearing child together. I buy a tea towel printed with red bottle-brush flowers to give to my partner when I get home, I will lose it somewhere between Valla and Woolongong.
There’s good swell but bad winds, I scope a few reefs, and then, finally, heeding the locals advice, I check out a few beachies. At Gunnamatta beach I’m greeted by the raw power of the Southern Ocean. Back home, the waves hug our fractled coastline, throwing themselves at the dolerite cliffs, and spinning their trailing arms out towards New Zealand, losing energy along the way. On the South-East coastline we experience fractions of their power after they wrap into our bays. They lap lazily against our gently sloping beaches only organising themselves into decent waves where topography and geology have a say in their refraction. Here however, they march in uninterputed, throwing themselves hard against the coarse and yellow sand as they try to eat away the dunes. They hit the shallow coastline quickly and rear up, before dashing themselves onto perfectly made banks sculptured by rip currents, a by-product of the very action that allows them to exist. The water escapes out via these channels, and up the faces of waves, creating steep faces and hollow sections. These guys don’t know how good they’ve got it.
Fuck Victoria likes to tell you what to do. There are signs everywhere. A sign telling you that there is a round-about in 400m. A sign telling you to slow down before you reach the round-about, a sign with a built-in speedometer telling you that you are going too fast for the round-about, a sign telling you the round-about is in 200m, 100m, 50m, give way to your right… And then you’re finally in the round about and you notice that it has one entrance, and one exit, and the other two branches are closed because the subdivision they built the round-about for never got built!
I’ve heard every right-wing-crackpot-conspiracy about Dan Andrews and the Victorian Government since the whole COVID fiasco, but I think the real conspiracy is sitting atop galvanised poles stuck into the ground around Victoria; Dan Andrews owns stocks in a sign writing business.
After a few days floating around the Mornington Peninsula a SE wind picks up and blows the whole joint out. Eilidh recommends the Phillip Island, claiming that a series of sand bars catch swell, refract it slightly, and throw it to the next one; ultimately allowing southern ocean swells to wrap nearly 180° as it enters Port Phillip Bay, without losing much size. Four hours and a grocery shop later Eilidh’s claim is proven to be true as 3ft left hand runners stand up over a rocky reef, with the swell seemingly coming from the Melbourne CBD!
Around 5pm people start exiting the water, theres still an hour and a half of daylight and the low tide is making the wave break even better! A fast take off slingshots you into a wall with ample room for a roundhouse as the wave bends back on itself, a fat section threatens to close out before it feels the very shallow rocks below and accelerates you down the line for a quick cover-up. Careful to take a highline though, else you feel the bottom too and get dragged over the rocks. Within 15 minutes the crowd thins from 15 to one, me. I’m beyond stoked! Until I see a lady waving at me from the beach, shit, is there a shark? I paddle in.
“We close the whole peninsula from 5pm to protect the penguins” says the Ranger, “you’ll have to leave.”
Within 10 minutes I’ve sweet-talked my way out of a fine, and into a free ticket to the nights penguin watch, all those late nights on Bruny as the Penguin Ranger has paid off! Little Penguins (Eudyptula minor, among many other common names) are some of the most charismatic seabirds you’re ever going to meet, and I’m blown away by the level of infastructure and commitment to the conservation of these little guys. Following the development of a housing estate in the 1970’s local conservation groups noticed a decline in penguin numbers, driven by damaged habitat, foxes, and family pets. By the 1980’s as few as 8,000 breeding pairs remained. In an unprecedented move, the Victorian Government actually did something (besides erecting signage) and began a repurchasing and rehabilitation scheme; buying back over 170 waterfront properties, removing invasive species and predators, rehabilitating the coastal environment, and providing nesting habitat for the penguins. The colony is now well over 80,000 strong, with an estimated 40,000 breeding pairs! This conservation effort has also greatly benefited other native species such as the Australian Fur Seal, Bush Stone Curlew, Koala (which I don’t see), and Eastern Barred Bandicoot. The Phillip Island Parks Service has an insane amount of funding, and is a flagship for what is possible if we all pulled our finger out and got on with looking after the land around us.
The down side of all this conservation is that everything is under lock and key, or under a watchful eye, where the hell am I going to sleep? I roll into a quiet corner under some gums and start to make a daal for tea, it’s 11pm, surely nobody is going to catch me. I park in a way that obscures my view of the “no camping”sign, if sweet talk won’t cut it, maybe wilful ignorance will? I ponder if this is a good choice as a ute pulls into the carpark and someone steps out. I’m blinded by their head torch, it’s okay, I didn’t need my retinas anyway.
“Hey, you can’t camp here, you’ll have to move along.”
That was quick, I’m still frying the onions.
“Oh, I’m just making dinner. Driving to Inverloch on an empty stomach is no fun” I lie. “Figured I’d go looking for bats while this simmers.”
Stepping into the orange down light from the canopy, my face is illuminated at same time as the Ranger turns off her glaring head torch. Recognition flashes across the face of the same lady I met on the beach.
“Oh neat! There’s a hollow tree about a K down that path with a hibernacular in it, go check it out! Don’t drive tonight, just stay here, I’ll tell the other Rangers that you’re okay.” She gestures up to the light at the end of the gated road. “That’s the staff accomodation, pop up if you need anything, have a good night!”
What are the odds? I parked in the Rangers bloody driveway.
The next morning I wake early and make a coffee and begin a walk down the trail the Ranger pointed me down the night before. At night ringtails clambered through the trees as insects and boobooks created a night-time symphony. Bats whirled and chirped overhead and brushtails screeched aloud their land disbutes. But this morning, all is quiet and still. I wake up slowly with the world as I walk. As the coffee does its job, I become aware of my surroundings, familiar at first but seemingly changing its character as I look closer. The Australian bush has the same essence no matter where you are, but different species carve out the same niches, changing minute details which add up to something completely new once you take notice.
Swamp wallabies stand alert as I approach, interupting their breakfast. The tips of their tails white, their ears bigger and rounder than those of the wallabies back home. Unsure of me they bound away, their heads and tails taking turns to periscope above the tall grass, ears, tail, ears, tail, ears, tail, gone.
I spend the next few days exploring the island, going on walks and scoping a few new surf spots. Taking the time to play blow-in I peruse the market stalls and join the throngs at the tourist traps. A Jaycar outlet allows me to swap a button for the water pump with very little MacGyvering. A bazar has an astounding array of second hand tools, instruments, clothes, and records — packed to the rafters with stuff, the building’s decore directly contrasts my very minimal and space-conscious way of living, “it’s too early in the trip to fill the car with crap” I tell myself. The swell has dropped but a promising low pressure system is developing in the Tasman and may bring some of the better waves to life, so I’ll rest at Kitty Miller Bay and wait for it to arrive.
Gallery
A song for wide open roads, the excitement of what lays ahead, sunsets, and the promise of warmer waters. I think I’ll chuck a song reccy for each section of the trip down with the gallery. Keep ya eyes peeled in the next one!
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