By the time this issue is delivered, if all goes according to plan, Freya will have finished, or be very close to finishing, her yearlong, 9,400-mile solo circumnavigation of Australia.
I spoke with Freya by phone on November 9th, shortly after she had finished the third, longest and last significant stretch of cliffs. She and her partner Greg Bethune, driving a support van, had rendezvoused at a beach east of the 112-mile long Bunda Cliffs and were taking a day off.
Some stretches of the highway along the Great Australian Bight are quite a distance from the water. Did Greg have any trouble finding places to meet you?
The first part of the section, from Albany to the end of the first Baxter Cliffs, the highway was a long way from the coast, not so much in miles but time. On some very rough bush roads, he could only travel at 10 or 15 kilometers an hour.
On the Bunda Cliffs he could often see me from the top, but when it got dark he would eventually fall asleep and I just kept on paddling. It was quite funny.
Was he able to keep in touch with you by phone while you were along the cliffs?
We have VHF radios, but the problem was the battery on Greg’s radio did not last long enough for him to entertain me continuously. I would have liked to have had his encouragement while I was paddling, but we had to keep things a bit shorter.
The satellite phone would have worked all the time, but with it I would have been talking instead of paddling. The VHF radio worked well but the battery wasn’t up to date. That’s just like it is. It was good enough for basic communication.
Are you progressing as well as you’d hoped?
If you follow Paul’s [Caffyn] schedule, that’s kind of what I’m aiming for too. Right now I’m about three days behind the dates of his schedule, so if I want to finish like him, before Christmas, on the 23rd, I need to catch up on those three days. I’m still 14 days ahead of him [Freya started at a later date than Caffyn, so she’s ahead of him in elapsed time], but I’m not really sure if it’s good to finish so close to Christmas or the first week of January.
My visa is running out on the 10th of January. I applied a couple of days ago for extending the visa, but there has been no response yet. I’ll make it in time before the visa runs out, but it’s still threatening. I would like to stay [in Australia] for a while after the whole thing.
Do you think shooting for the middle of December is too much of a rush?
I think it may be possible but it all depends on the weather. I can’t tell. Comparing to Paul’s schedule, he had a couple of days off later and I probably will have to, too. But as I said, I can’t speak for the weather. I’m able to paddle as long as he did, especially with an empty boat right now, but on the other hand Greg has to be off for two weeks in two week’s time to look after his business. So I will be alone again for a while, but that shouldn’t slow me down too much. Perhaps not at all.
I don’t have anything hard, I just have to island hop on the leg from the mainland to Kangaroo Island. So that’s the one [challenging] thing, but that’s all. I’m aiming for… well about 8 days before Christmas would be nice. I don’t know what’s better, publicity-wise. [In late December] everybody’s busy with Christmas preparations and the first week of January is when a lot of Australians have holidays.
If the weather slows me down I definitely won’t mind finishing the 2nd or 3rd of January, or something like that, but definitely not between Christmas and New Year’s. That’s stupid. Nobody would be there.
If you found you were on a pace to finish in that off week would you slow down?
I can’t say, sorry. Maybe I’ll just be happy to get it done and if I finish on the 25th, well, I finish on the 25th. Ideally it would be on the 20th or earlier when it is not so hard to get people together. It just depends on what the weather says.
The next few days are supposed to be nice so tomorrow I should be continuing. I didn’t have that many sores from that long night paddle [along the Bunda Cliffs].
How has the routine changed with the support from Greg driving the van?
Quite a bit, quite a bit. No doubt about it. It would be easier if we were an old couple, but we’re not an old couple. Still, it’s working out quite nicely. Getting the van set up was Greg’s main chore and I had only one day to spend with him to outfit the whole thing to suit our needs.
And on that day when I couldn’t paddle I needed to spend my time on the household stuff. After everything was set, it was just nice and comfortable to be helped at night with warm shower water and food and things. Can’t complain about that.
Greg does a great job. I doubt that the time I have to recover after a long day’s paddling is any longer, because we have to talk so much and there are different chores to be done around the van. But it is definitely nicer and more pleasant and entertaining. Simply different. It’s a fully different trip with a support crew.
Sometimes I have to push hard to get to the spot where he’s waiting and can get beach access. Sometimes I have to paddle shorter than I could because the next twenty miles may have nothing where Greg can get to the beach. So I have to adjust my paddling days and distances as well.
I’ve already pushed him to take four-wheel drive tracks that nobody else would have gone in, but he made it. Without four-wheel drive and without four-wheel driving skills it would be trouble. Greg is very impressed with where this van has taken him.
What has it been like getting to know someone during this trip?
It’s a stressful way. I have to paddle all day and he has his chores to do too to get to the next place to meet me, sometimes to shop and do laundry, to reconnoiter and to talk to local people to get information about coast access and tracks ahead. It’s not like there’s a paved road here. He has his fair share of work to do, too.
I’d imagined he’d drive ahead and relax on the beach waiting for you.
Oh, it’s only happened once or twice where he’s relaxed on the beach and caught fish while waiting for me. His time is quite short and he’s very happy to talk to locals about beach access. That’s quite important because in this part of the country there are few road signs on the tracks going through the bush and dunes to the beach. Sometimes the signs are hidden. Sometimes there are big hand-carved ones, but they’re not alongside the highway, they’re in the bush and we can’t tell how they got there. You have to go to the next roadhouse and ask someone where the next spot is or ask anyone you meet along the way.
GPS is very helpful in finding the tracks. Greg met some other four-wheel guys who were using aerial photographs. There simply aren’t any road signs and not many landmarks, especially not here in the bush and in these plains. There is simply nothing. You need to know where you want to go and have a compass and, these days, a GPS is very helpful. Talking to the locals is the best thing. Greg is very good at that and is a “local” anyway.
How is the drinking water situation?
The roadhouses have enough good quality rainwater that we can fill up. There are days where water is limited but we carry enough on the van. With the water bags full it’s not an issue. We have to save water but I’ll always have a shower at night, even if a tiny one. We’re never out of water.
Any groundwater comes from deep wells at roadhouses, etc., and apparently is very poor quality and often even salty. Eucla town had a desalinating plant. We have not had to buy the water like I thought. We ask and are given access to precious rainwater tanks—they’re the main source of water.
Are you done with cliffs now?
I’m done with the cliffs now, thank goodness. Three sets of them [Zuytdorp at 106 miles (171 km), Baxter at 102 miles (164 km), Bunda at 112 miles (180 km)] were more than enough. There may be some other cliffs ahead, but nothing that long.
The last two, the Baxter and the Bunda were somewhat similar because the water was quiet with no swell and I could paddle close. With the Zuytdorp Cliffs I had quite a bit of swell so I was paddling way offshore. I paddled a lot of it at night so I didn’t see much of those cliffs. The last two sets of cliffs were similar, though one was longer than the other, but it was basically calm water. Even when I had some wind going it was choppy but there was no swell, well, very little. Still enough to make me seasick though.
On the first set [Zuytdorp] I didn’t take my outriggers, but on the second set I had them out at night even though I had perfect conditions. There was bright moonlight—there was no lack of a visible horizon—but I still got seasick. There was a bit of rebound, and after throwing up a second time I thought “Now you need to pull out your floats.”
I was making great progress and throwing up made me feel much more comfortable. I was enough ahead of schedule on that two-day paddle I felt I could be a bit slow. For safety’s sake I paddled off the coast and into the wind so I think I made only 25 kilometers [15.53 miles] that whole night. Good enough to arrive at the end with decent daylight left.
When the sun was up again, I felt all right and could take off my floats and switch into normal fast-paddling mode.
The third set of cliffs was similar. I had the moon for the second half of the night and I put out my floats in the first dark half just for taking a few power naps. It was all feeling quite nice when I had my floats out. Then at midnight this big wind came up. It had been a calm but very warm and muggy day, and up until midnight a calm night, then it was 25 or 30 knots. Luckily it was a following wind—west-northwest.
I had to steer the boat a little bit away from the cliffs. I just sat there and got a bit of a push. It was not too bad but I didn’t get any catnap at all. I’d napped a couple of times before midnight. I survived about two hours of very strong following wind. Then the wind came down and came at me as a headwind but it was not that strong, just 10 to 15 knots. The moon came out at about two o’clock. At about 3 o’clock I took my floats off and started paddling. The headwind was just a bit too strong to paddle against with the floats on.
Luckily I had taken enough ginger tablets and had taken them early enough. That night I was thankfully without seasickness.
Have you only been getting seasick at night?
No, not only at night; I get sick during the day too. When I’m fiddling around too much—typing text messages, getting stuff out of the cockpit, putting things on.
When I switch into night mode that will set it off too. That’s why I tried doing things in stages on Baxter, the second set of cliffs, but that wasn’t working. I could have tried the ginger tablets [to ward off seasickness] but I just didn’t feel like taking anything. You can’t do much about seasickness when you’re already feeling the nausea.
I don’t mind throwing up. It’s all right usually. It takes maybe one time or two and then your stomach is empty and you’re done. That night it took more. It took five times. That was still all right. There was still some stuff coming out. It’s amazing what comes out of the stomach. But I have to say I had the advantage. I didn’t have to do number two the next morning. There was nothing left in the digestive tract.
You say it’s amazing what comes up. Were there things you didn’t remember eating?
Oh no, it was everything I had eaten, I reckon—a couple of oranges. Actually it was nice and dark and I didn’t look at what was landing on my spray deck. I was continuously staring ahead. I’d just let it go until I was done. Why should I look in detail at what was down there? It probably wouldn’t make me feel much better. I’d just wash it off and keep on going.
How’s your weight?
Hmm. It’s all right. I’m not really thick and I’m not really thin. I think I’m quite good. I had a chance in a roadhouse to look at a bigger mirror and thought, “I’m not getting younger.” Without things plumped up nice and round by fat, the skin starts to hang here and there. No more details, nothing that can be printed.
With another month and almost 1,000 miles left to go—a distance that would be an expedition in its own right—are you thinking that you’re very close to the finish?
Oh yes, I’m almost done. It’s longer than going around Iceland, that distance I’ve got left to do, but that’s all right. I’ve done everything that’s really tough and I reckon the next leg won’t be that tough. There’s one 200-kilometer [124 miles] stretch of beach, Coorong Beach, which might be kind of fun, but I don’t know. We’ll see how it looks, whether if I can land or not land. Paul had a little trouble there. We’ll have to see how the wind and surf situation is there. I hope when I get there Greg will be back from his business trip.
I must admit I’m ready to be done. I simply need more mental input, rather than just planning the next day, landing and weather and stuff. It’s getting boring. I need more to think about, more to talk about, and more to deal with. More to manage and to organize. Even Greg thinks it has become quite the same routine only after six weeks . He’s not really happy that he has to go for this [charter] business trip on his own boat, but it will give him something else to do. He’ll be back, we’ll finish the whole thing and we’ll be done.
Every day is a different day, and every day we’re staying in different places and every day brings different things but still, I’d be happy to do some other sport as well at this point, and see something different. This morning I was doing a bit of driving in our van to go to a roadhouse for fuel and a shower. It was fun doing something different.
Does Greg have time to talk?
You’ve been providing support while Freya has done a couple of long stretches of cliffs and been battling seasickness. What has that been like from your perspective?
You know, with everything else she’s dealing with on these extremely tough sections, you, being a kayaker, can imagine perhaps better than I, you don’t want to be seasick as well. The mental strain of it all, then when it’s rough, and dark, there’s no visible horizon, you’re in survival mode and you’re sick, it’s pretty nasty. I feel a bit sick at times too.
It’s not without worry for me you know. If she tells me she’s going to call at two o’clock in the morning and she doesn’t call until half past two, then that’s 30 minutes of worry for me, thinking of the worst and wondering what’s going on. It’s very stressful. But everything has turned out all right and she’s going fine now and the worst is over. It’s the homeward stretch now.
It seems that you’ve been pretty busy. Has it been more work providing support than you thought it might be?
Yes, it has been more than I thought. Although she might only paddle 60 or 70 kilometers [37 or 43 miles] for the day, I thought when I was planning this trip that distance is no more than an hour’s drive in a motor vehicle and I’d have the rest of the day sitting around doing marketing [for my business] or something on my laptop. It’s not that at all.
Quite often I’ve got to drive 300 kilometers [186 miles] to get back to the highway, drive along the highway and then find a track that I might only be able to drive 13 or 15 kilometers [8 or 9 miles] per hour on very slow tracks. It’s been many, many days where I’ve actually arrived after she’s landed, you know, and she says something like, “What you been doin’ all day?” and I say, “Bloody hell, I’ve been very busy, thank you very much. I’ve done the laundry and I’ve bought some food and I’ve done this and I’ve talked to these people and I’ve talked to those people.
And that way we were going to go isn’t right and won’t work because that track’s not there and we have to come in this way…” Australian bush people are very genuine salts of the earth and very much fun to talk to.
It’s been very interesting and certainly not boring. Yeah, it’s been very pleasurable for me. The Great Australian Bight is a drive that not everybody does. People ask if I have driven the Great Australian Bight and now I can say that I have.
We haven’t done it on a highway. Very, very few people have driven the Bight the way I have, on the tracks along the coast, which there are a lot of, you know. I’m not on the highway sharing the road with big semitrailers and all the gray nomads with their caravans and motor homes.
We’ve been rolling along seeing some absolutely magnificent countryside and a coast that is spectacular. These cliffs are probably the most spectacular landforms that I’ve seen in my career.
Have you had any experience as a kayaker?
No. As a kid I had one my dad made when I was 8 years old. I’ve lived and worked on the water as a professional career since I was 18 years old. I’ve mucked around in them but I would not say I’m a kayaker by any stretch of the imagination.
What did you think when you first met Freya?
I had my charter boat on the dock at my home port and one of my crew said to me, “There’s a woman paddling a kayak around Australia who’s looking for you for some local knowledge. My first thought was, “Yeah, here’s another nutter.” I’ve seen other people go past doing different things—sailing to New Guinea on sailboards and what have you. But when I met her I changed my mind a little bit. She’s very well prepared and well organized and stunningly attractive, as you well know. The rest is history.
You must have developed a fair bit of admiration now that she’s paddled around most of the continent.
That’s right. I jokingly say to people, “It’s a good thing she became my girlfriend during the trip because if she was my girlfriend prior to the trip, one of two things’d happen: She wouldn’t do the trip, or she wouldn’t be my girlfriend.”