DAY 17 - December 26, 2022 - Corinna

DAY 17 – December 26, 2022 – Corinna

Another gorgeous day, lots of sun and blue skies. A couple of days before, we had booked kayaks for a half-day outing on the Pieman River, from 9:00am to 1:30pm. After some basic instructions, we were provided with our life vest, paddles, and kayaks. Jim and I decided to have a single so we could both take photos separately on our journey on the river.

As we were leaving on our kayaking adventure, Jess and Alex are having their photo taken by one of the staff for their marketing brochure or website.

The beginning of our kayaking adventure was very smooth. No wind and plenty of sunshine. See below a photo gallery of our kayaking exploits…

Sunken Ship Site

As recommended by the staff, we took a small fork to the right of the river going upstream to see a sunken ship, the S.S. Croydon shipwreck (sunk in 1919). However, due to the heavy rains the river level was too high for us to see anything.

It is quite acrobatic trying to get out of a kayak that’s in the water… Alex managed it and took a look around the area.

Lovers Fall

After this small detour, we continued our way down the Pieman River toward Lovers Fall, where we crossed paths with the Acadia II on its way to Pieman Heads.

To reach the falls, we had to get out of our kayaks… a challenge in itself when a kayak is in the water and it’s difficult to hold on to something stable. We all managed to do it, more or less elegantly.

Lovers Fall is a small oasis in the Tarkine Forest with a waterfall. Very refreshing to stand under the tall gum trees and manferns..

Then, it was time to head back to Corinna as our deadline to return the kayaks was 1:00pm.

Killer Wind… Killer Waves… and Rescue!

A few minutes after leaving Lovers Fall, the wind suddenly blasted across the river… quite a bit surprise for everyone! The river became very rough and the waves were going over the kayaks… humongous waves…! Jim and I realized that having a single kayak made it very difficult to paddle against the wind and the waves.

No more photos for the rest of the day… except the one with the big wave… then my kayak went under and I had to swim to shore, until… well, there’s got to be a story somewhere!

It was rather scary as we could see we were not making lots of progress paddling upstream. The double kayaks took off way ahead of us.

At last, the wind did die down somewhat, which made it easier to keep going on… but still quite exhausting. “Last time to kayak!” said Jim. As for me, I’ll go kayaking again… but I’ll have to watch out for killer winds and waves 😊 !!

As we were about 15 mins from the pier a small catamaran checked on us (we were past our half-day tour, and the rest of our group had told the staff that we were far behind). There were other tourists who were waiting for our single kayaks.

Rescued, at last! We got a lift on the catamaran back to the pier. Definitely, a touch of adventure on the return trip to Corinna.

Wrapping up a Fun (almost Scary) Day

After all these emotions, we spent the rest of the day relaxing, napping, as it was too hot to do anything else. We eventually ended up at the bar drinking beer and wine. As you can see here, Jess and Alex are well underway!

After a few drinks, we were more than ready to have dinner at the Tannin Restaurant where we had booked a table for 6:15pm. It was quite busy now as people were starting to arrive to Corinna for their summer holidays.

The restaurant uses local Tasmanian ingredients whenever possible, like seafood, fruit, vegetables and meat from local businesses. The meal was really flavorful and well prepared, even in the middle of nowhere.

The dinner was a great way to wrap up our last day in Corinna… beautiful memories we won’t forget! I would love to come back and see other sites in the Tarkine wilderness.