YOU KNOW THOSE photos you see of kayaks floating in water so clear and calm it looks like they’re suspended in mid-air? It’s hard not to imagine yourself inside such images, which is exactly what I’m doing somewhere off the coast of Tasmania’s Freycinet Peninsula. I’m overcome by a feeling of utter peace and feel myself drifting away … carried toward the sunset on a cloud carriage … pulled by a brace of smiling unicorns … until … SPLAT! I’m slapped in the face by another fistful of the briny deep. The beguiling image, a photograph taken not far from here, is instantly dispelled. I shake salt water from my ears and resume powering through the two-metre swell.
I’m in a tandem kayak with Steve from Melbourne, 20 years my senior, with whom I’d quickly built a rapport based on mutual sarcasm. By day three, somewhere off the southern tip of the peninsula, we’re paddling as one organism, our blades plunging into the sea in perfect unison. Our fully loaded Mission Eco Niizh 565 feels as stable as a helipad, even with a sea so choppy that the other four kayaks are hidden in the troughs that divide us from the imposing cliffs of Shouten Island. I grit my teeth and focus solely on the bluff at which we’ve been instructed to aim by Elijah, our lead guide.
We feel lucky to have got this far. The example itinerary
