Author: Mrs A
Location: Tabourie Lake, NSW
The early cloud soon cleared to provide us with a lovely blue sky morning with little wind. We decided to take advantage of the good weather to launch our kayak and have an explore. The northern side of Tabourie Creek is just a few metres from our camp, so it was an easy wheel to the water’s edge.
There were not many people out on the water, the occasional person fishing along the shoreline. The creek is closed to the ocean, reaching a sandy beach at one end and stretching inland the other way. It is quite shallow – in many places less than half a metre deep, but fine for our kayak and preventing motorised craft from annoying us. The White-Spotted jellyfish we spotted yesterday were plentiful, like little aliens shooting around the waterway – they’re not poisonous to humans, but I still wouldn’t fancy swimming amongst them!
We explored Lemontree Creek, an offshoot from Tabourie Creek, spying on the quiet houses lining its banks, mostly holiday homes we are guessing. We were entertained by fish leaping and a pair of Azure Kingfishers which shot up and down the riverbanks, their orange chests and blue wings flashing through the green undergrowth. As we reached the end of the navigable creek we surprised a bush wallaby which stood frozen, almost gaping at our boat as we cruised along. 
We were reminded that kayaking is by far the most effective way of getting close to nature. Some of our past experiences are right out of a David Attenborough nature documentary including whales, dolphins, kestrels and eagles, and today was no different. As we rounded the corner out of Lemontree Creek I noticed a huge bird in the tree just metres from us. It took a few seconds to realise it was a massive White-bellied Sea-Eagle, finishing its fishy meal. I tried to capture it on the camera – a challenge on the little waterproof one – this is one moment when I wish I had my telephoto lens!
If you look carefully on the left of the image, you can see the great bird taking flight – just magnificent, with a wingspan of around 2 metres.
We clocked up just over 9km by the time we reached camp, and were ready for lunch.
Tonight, two of our friends from Sydney, Michelle and Dan have joined us for the weekend, following a slow drive south through Friday night traffic. A dinner of roast chicken, salad and sweet potato wedges plus several glasses of wine have helped them to wind down after their journey and we’re hoping the weather forecast is right for this weekend and we will indeed be blessed with blue skies and sunshine. We’ve ordered more Kingfishers and Sea-Eagles to entertain us tomorrow – let’s hope the booking is honoured!
We also noticed that the town looked pretty much the same as it did years ago when we last visited. After our shock at how Orange had changed (and not for the better), it was a relief to see at least Husky has not been exploited by developers with a friend on the council.
Brunch was calling so we headed park to our launch point and I fired up the Weber. It was our first bacon and eggs of the trip, and won’t be the last I can tell you! Catherine toasted some sweet potato slices instead of having bread…not bad.
It really was awesome, massive sting rays were lurking in the water, their blinking eyes the only clue they were there.
After we got past some houses we didn’t see anyone else on the river. Very tranquil, its what we love about kayaking. We saw heaps of water birds, including a kingfisher flashing his bright blue wings as he chased some lunch. Cormorants aired their wings in the sun, an eagle flashed overhead chased by a crow. We felt at peace with the world, remembering that this was a Tuesday morning and how privileged are we to be enjoying this life.
We paddled back to camp and decided to head into Nowra, we wanted to buy a Soda Stream and this would be our last chance. We drink a lot of sparkling water and wanted to be free from picking up our 6/7 bottles a week and then creating all that plastic waste, often in areas with no recycling. We tested it out and were pretty happy with the result.
