Last weekend the WA State Slalom Championships were held. It was good to have Brody Crawford there. Brody has been living in Sydney and training at the Penrith Whitewater Course but he came home just before the lockdown. Brody was a reserve C1 paddler for the Olympics so he is good.

It gave George Pankhurst and Hunter Florisson an idea of how much they have to improve to become one of Australia’s best, although George is not that far behind.

Next weekend there is a slalom training course and anyone with a little white water experience can take part.

It had been a while since I competed in a white water slalom but I gave it a go in K1 and C1. You don’t paddle many kilometres in a slalom though, so I had to make up 20 kilometres in the evening.

This week I paddled 214 kms in 14 weeks bringing my total so far to 2750 kms.

If you are a paddler there are lots of benefits by joining a club.

Paddle WA

About Direct Membership

Fox secures gold at first World Cup post
Tokyo Olympic success

Tokyo Olympic gold and bronze medalist Jessica Fox showed no Games hangover when she won the kayak final at the ICF World Cup in La Seu, Spain tonight.

It was a little redemption for Fox, who had hoped to take the double gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics in the slalom kayak and canoe events, but was forced to settle for bronze in the kayak. She backed up two days later to claim gold in the historic women’s canoe slalom.

Tokyo Olympic bronze medallist in women’s kayak event Jessica Fox produced the best run in women’s K1 final to claim her eight World Cup win in kayak, but her first on the 1992 Olympic course.

The 27-year-old Australian was 3.66 seconds faster than Mallory Franklin from Great Britain who was leading in the semifinal, while Slovakia’s Eliška Mintalova won her first ever World Cup medal. Until now, the best result for Mintalova at World Cups was fourth place in Prague in 2019.

Fox was really pleased with the win commenting: “[It is] really good, I tried to really attack it. I came in quite well from gate one… tried to do the tight lines. It pieced that together really well and I’m very pleased with that race.

“It’s always really challenging the La Seu World Cup because the course is quite tricky and fiddly and I’ve never put down those amazing runs that I feel I’m capable of, so to do it today is really great,” she said.
Paddle Australia

McGrath Makes History

It has been a golden 24 hours for Australia’s Curtis McGrath, becoming the first para-canoe athlete to win two gold medals at a single Paralympic Games and etched his name in the history books. 
After first defending his KL2 Paralympic title yesterday, McGrath backed it up with another sensational win in the newly introduced Va’a discipline. 
In his trademark finish, McGrath powered home to leave the competition in his wake, changing up his race tactics from the heats to ensure he could claim the double. 
“I’m very happy to have this all done. It’s been a long road, and everyone has worked really hard to get here and thankfully for me I achieved all my dreams and goals.
“I swapped up my strategy, and did my changes in the middle of the race at about the 100m mark, and that allowed me to push on and power through,” he said.
McGrath originally started his canoe career paddling the Va’a (Polynesian for canoe), but was forced to change to kayak when the IPC announced only one discipline for the Rio 2016 Paralympics. 
With the Va’a added to the Tokyo program, it was like coming home for McGrath.  He has dominated on the international stage since taking up the sport, winning the Va’a at every World Championship since 2014.   
McGrath’s story is well known the world over, starting out in the sport after losing both his legs while serving as an Australian Army combat engineer in Afghanistan. 
When he started his Paralympic career, if you’d asked could he imagine this level of success, he admits it wasn’t even a thought. 
“I didn’t even think I’d get to the Paralympics – it was just a comment I made to give my comrades hope to help them get through the trauma. 
“I could see that they were hurting in their heart and in their mind. So having this happen is very special and is a tribute to them as well,” he said. 
The 33 year old has his sights set on Paris, but for now he’s going to take some time off to rest and recover. 
“I’m definitely going to have a year off next year. I’m a little bit tired and sore, I need my body to recover. 
“Five years hammering the same block of steel is pretty hard so I’m keen for a break and some time out. But at the same time I love competing, I love representing Australia and I’m looking forward to the opportunity to do it again… if I qualify,” he said.
For fellow Aussies Susan Seipel and AJ Jennings, it wasn’t quite their day at the office, Jennings not qualifying through to the final in the kayak. 
While Seipel was backing up from her silver medal winning performance in her pet event the VL2, she was unable to take back to back medals, finishing seventh.

Paddle Australia.

Thursday 2^nd June

Before leaving our paradise camp in Cone Bay we decided to climb the range and visit the abandoned XenX camp which was a few hundred metres away. I first visited it in 1982 when two hermits were living there. It was pristine then.

The heat was intense even being so early in the morning. We stumbled over rocks, spinifex and passed giant ant hills. When XenX moved out, the place was ransacked by some idiots as I found this out a year earlier in 1987 when I visited it with Ken. Now a year later it was still ransacked and overgrown, but there was still a few fruit trees, one small orange tree with small fruit on it too sour to eat. A small fresh water creek was running down beside the camp and cascading down the rocks into a small bay below.

We returned to our kayaks had another quick fresh water shower in the creek and packed to leave to paddle 9kms across the calm bay surrounded by magnificent scenery. On the other side we ferry glided across a fast current in a channel and then decided to have lunch to allow the current to ease so we could make better headway.

Back on the move we headed towards Mary Islands. The weather was hot with only a slight wind, the scenery still picturesque. Passing the islands we then focussed on paddling to Whirlpool Pass some 9 kms away. We suddenly had the tide with us so we flew towards the pass and as soon as we got close the tide then turned against us so we struggled to get close to the pass so we landed on a beach long before the entrance. I made a radio sked and sat down to enjoy a staminade drink and then a coffee before unloading our kayaks. Ewen went fishing whilst I did some odd jobs and started preparing dinner as it was my turn. There was a spectacular sunset.

Friday June 3^rd 

It was my birthday but that didn’t mean a holiday. We were up at 5.00am, the tide was really low and a long way out so we had a long walk to the water. We eventually reached the south end of Whirlpool Pass to find a reef stopping us. I jumped out and started pulling the kayak in the shallow water over the reef and spotted a channel around the reef which we then headed for.

As we rounded the reef Ewen had company, a reef shark headed straight for him but eventually it diverted into the deep blue. The sun was now reflecting beautifully on the cliff faces before us. It was a stunning scene. Everything was so still apart from some reef birds taking the opportunity to collect food for breakfast. We had missed out on our breakfast as we were in too much of a hurry to get going this morning.

Tiny fish skipped across the water in large schools trying to escape some larger fish I suspect. They all leapt in perfect time, their silver bodies glittering in the early sun. Every so often they would startle me as my mind at the time was thinking about crocs as mud and mangroves dominated the edges of the channel.

Individual flying fish also bounded from the water leaping great distances and making the channel a hype of activity. Even small turtles wanted to join in with the fun surfacing around us at a much slower pace. On shore a high water mark stain on the cliffs indicated that the tide had to rise another 9 metres to hit the highest of tides which was a massive distance.

Suddenly there was a large splash behind us which had us thinking. It was most probably a shark, but in 1982 I had seen a big crocodile near this spot. I was just telling Ewen about the croc when something hit his rudder. He wasn’t happy, but became happier when we had cleared the pass and were out in a bay.

We made good progress to Margaret Island where we tried to make a radio call to Lee on Koolan Island. We didn’t get Lee but Michael Cusak who was living in the Kimberley Wilderness for a year, a Dick Smith experiment, heard us, so he asked us to drop in when we were in the area. He and his wife Sue were a few weeks from spending a year in the wilderness. It was 15 kms to our night camp at Nares Point which was a shouting distance from Koolan Island.   

The tide was against us but we eventually reached Nares Point 33 kilometres from our last camp. Intensely folded rock formations dominated our camp site and my birthday beach. Ewen, a chef by trade, fished under a spectacular red patchy sky oblivious to the lurking crocs that could be watching him. In the dying light he was eaten alive by sand fly bites but before giving up he hooked a small shark, which he later cooked in garlic. Mashed potatoes and freeze dried stew was the first course. Fish, garlic and peppers cooked in foil became our second course. Then for sweets Ewen had placed glowing candles on a plum pudding in a rich brandy sauce which provided a wilderness birthday meal I will never forget.

Saturday 4^th June

We broke camp before sunrise in the hope to get to Koolan Island well before midday to get to the shop. It was a long weekend so we were a little concerned everything would be closed.

There was noise coming from Koolan Island but we couldn’t see any activity as we paddled down the channel towards two gaps, the Gut and the Drain. As we entered the Drain the low tidal current was with us. At times we could see coral so it wasn’t very deep in places. Up above sea eagles soared. A pair was taking advantage of the early morning thermals and another landed in a tree close by. It was huge.

Within 30-40 minutes we sighted the boat ramp that led up to the community. It was a good but lonely sight as it was too early for the local boating enthusiasts to be out. It was a 3.7km walk up to the community so we were happy when a local arrived at the boat ramp and offered us a ride.

When we arrived and Lee and Norm’s home there was a note stuck to the front door telling us to go in and make ourselves at home. Their living room was spacious with open shutters that looked out into the bush and the ocean. Within minutes two miner birds came to the window and then landed inside on the table. They were daily visitors apparently along with other birds and animals. Lee was a keen naturalist and we had been told their home was a haven for injured animals and birds. We had letters waiting for us so we read them before walking to the shops to meet Lee who was working, to shop for groceries and to stuff ourselves with chips and a coke.

Back at the house we relaxed then later Lee and Norm came home and they cooked us a great meal.

Although Lee knew all about me we had never met only talked on the phone. I had met Norm briefly in 1983 at King George River when he was a deckhand on a yacht that an old friend was sailing around the Kimberley. I also met him a year earlier in 1987 when Ken and I had visited Koolan Island on a previous trip. We knocked on his door and he greeted us with a huge python wrapped around his neck. Lee wasn’t on Koolan at the time.

Norm had helped us bring our kayaks and gear up from the beach so the following day we worked on the kayaks and gear and then I wrote in my diary. Lunch was something real special, we had a great salad and the rest of the day we relaxed and just talked.

Monday was a Public Holiday so we were showed around the island, talked, ate and met Dave the dove who Lee and Norm raised from a baby. Later that night we met a Major who was head of Nor-force. He had read about me in the Wild Magazine so he wanted to meet me. We had a great evening with him and his wife.  

 Koolan Island is a similar size to Rottnest Island and hosts deposits of high grade iron ore. At its peak, Koolan Island had a population of 950 people and had a school, police station, recreation facilities and shops. It had the world's then-longest golf course hole – an 860 yards par 7 number 6 which doubled as the island's air strip.

Paddle WA LiveLighter Sprint Canoe Regatta #2
2021/2022 Season

Champion Lakes Regatta Centre Saturday 18th September
First Race 8am

Canning Nomination Race
Organised by Canning River Canoe Club