Berwora Waters marina seen from up high
Hoping to capture another purple sunrise I got up at 5am and hit the water by 6am. The great thing about this time of the day is that there is no-one there to see you fall out of your kayak as you try to get in. No-one to see you embarrassingly dunk yourself in murky waters in the dark. Not that that would happen to me of course. 
Paddling into the murky darkness of pre-dawn Berowra Waters
Unfortunately the cloud cover was too solid for a burning sunrise, and I had to make to with amusing myself in other ways. Like taking photos INSIDE my kayak.
Inside a Boréal Nanook - clown's legs!
I did get to put in a fair bit of distance however and broke up the paddle at the halfway mark with a stop on a low-tide beach to relax, heed the call of nature and just to simply cast loving gazes over my Boréal Nanook kayak.
Fat Paddler's Boréal Nanook - Inuit for Polar Bear
Did I mention I love my Boréal Nanook?
All up a lovely relaxing 14.5km through the meandering Berowra Waters. Bewdy!
Sunrise Berowra Waters
Paddling Berowra Waters
Paddling Berowra Waters
Berowra Waters Inn, accessible only by boat or seaplane
Fat Paddler off home after the paddle
Tags: Berowra Waters, Boreal Nanook
FatPaddler tshirts... available soon!
My new Fatpaddler tshirts arrived today from @CustomTees. Very happy with how they turned out, and am now in discussions on how to make them available for sale on this very site (as well as the stickers, since so many of you emailed me wanting one!).
Don’t forget the slogan competition I’m running (to find the best slogan for the back of the FatPaddler tshirts). The best 3 slogans win a FatPaddler sticker, with the very best winning a FatPaddler tshirt with the winning slogan on back. Just add a comment to the competition page with your suggestion – entries close on 31st May 2009.
Endless hills and water... Ku-rang-gai Chase National Park
Today I spent a magnificent 3.5hrs on the beautiful waters of the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. Other than bloody sea-planes this was an invigorating 24km trek through pristine Australian bushland, red granite cliffs, waterfalls and circling white-bellied eagles. I’ll let the pics do the talking for this post. 
Aussie bushland - love it.
Gentle waterfalls.
How beautiful is this??
Think how many non-paddlers miss out on natural scenes like this?
Smith's Creek - should be called "Sea-Plane Runway"
Fat Paddler slicing through water - nice!
A very happy Fat Paddler
Tags: Ku-ring-gai Chase
Photo taken from kayak. In real life it looked much closer!
So there I am paddling through the beautiful Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park in Sydney’s north, enjoying the stunning Aussie bushland and the distant sound of running waterfalls. Looking up I occassionally see a rare White-Bellied Sea Eagle circling the water looking for prey. And then the serenity starts to fade as the sounds of nature are replaced with the low drone of an aircraft engine.
Now when paddling through the steep gorges of this beautiful part of the world, one does not expect to hear or see aircraft. And yet the noise is getting louder by the second even though I can’t see it. Then suddenly from around a curve in the river comes a bloody seaplane looking distinctly like it’s on a landing approach!
Hang on a minute.. is that a PLANE??
And sure enough, the low-flying bugger drops altitute, buzzes overhead and puts it down a few hundred metres behind me! At this stage I can only imagine someone of major importance has come to enjoy the very waters I was trying to enjoy. Or that a medical emergency is underway and sea-plane is the only way to get a doctor in. But not ten minutes later, another bloody plane comes in to land on top of me!
Oi! What about my serenity, eh??
By the third landing I realise I’m obviously paddling a well known, and well used, watery runway. Well, so much for a peaceful paddle. I’ve now added a new kayak enemy to the list.
What is this, a bloody pilot's convention??
Tags: sea planes
Fat Paddler medium sticker, cockpit of Boréal Nanook
Upon receipt of my new kayak (actually a second hand ex-rental from Sydney Harbour Kayaks), one thing became clear. I needed to clean it up and make it NOT look like a rental yak!
Flashback - the Nanook when still a rental. Note front sticker...
So armed with a bottle of white spirit, a blunt paint scraper, some cut-polish, a pile of rags, my ipod plugged into speakers and a six pack of Bundaberg Dark & Stormies (rum & ginger beer) I set out to clean up the kayak. This mainly involved removing old SHK stickers which had been placed liberally on each side of the kayak, front and back. Once removed, a little white spirit to clean excess gum off the boat, and then a little cut polish to clean up the decal areas.
Fat Paddler medium sticker on front hatch, Boréal Nanook
Once clean, I went to work placing the new Fat Paddler stickers. Firstly I discovered the big stickers I got were TOO big. This meant that for the side cockpit mounts, and the front hatch, I was going to have to use the medium stickers. Getting a clean placement of the vinyl stickers on the boat proved very difficult, and a slow carfeul process, due to the curve of the kayak and the propensity of the stickers to form folding air channels.
Then came the biggie, the one spot on the kayak where the big sticker could find a home, on the stern of the boat. This one went without a hitch, and the re-brand was complete. Now I just need a name for the boat.. and I’m swing towards “Pudding”. Later!
Large Fat Paddler sticker, kayak stern, Boréal Nanook
Large Fat Paddler sticker, kayak stern, Boréal Nanook
Tags: Boreal Nanook
