Paddling News

BARELY able to stand up, with pressure sores, boils, pimples andblisters on their hands, feet and backsides, four Australians rowed into Sydney Harbour and history yesterday morning after leaving New Zealand a gruelling 31 days ago. BARELY able to stand up, with pressure sores, boils, pimples andblisters on their hands, feet and backsides, four Australians rowed into Sydney Harbour and history yesterday morning after leaving New Zealand a gruelling 31 days ago.

After rowing more than 2250km, Kerry Tozer and Sally Macready, became the first women ever to row across the Tasman, while Steven Gates and Andrew Johnson became the first Australian men to do so.

The team operated two hours on, two hours off, for the entire journey, apart from spells during storms when they were forced to seek shelter in the tiny cabins at either end of the specially designed boat.

While the rowers successfully completed their trip yesterday, two men who have been kayaking across the Tasman in the opposite direction remain at sea.

The two teams, who have no formal connection, kept in contact and passed within 100km of each other.

James Castrission, 25, and Justin Jones, 24, have more than 460km to paddle after adverse currents made their dream of being the first to kayak the Tasman almost impossible.

On Saturday their 9m purpose-built kayak was bumped by two sharks. Despite their difficulties the pair hope to reach New Zealand by next Monday.

Organiser of the successful rowing trip, serial adventurer Gates, 39, who advertised for people to join him after having the boat specially designed in The Netherlands, said they were "completely exhausted" and only functioning at all thanks to "lots of painkillers". "The fact that everyone is still walking today is testimony to some of the drugs in our medical kit," he said.

The only person to have rowed the Tasman was New Zealander Colin Quincy, who covered the distance in 67days in 1976. Kayaker Andrew McAuley died on a similar attempt in February, within 65km of Milford Sound in New Zealand.

The four wobbly rowers were greeted yesterday by family and well-wishers at Neutral Bay in Sydney harbour. They had cleared Customs after meeting officials at Watsons Bay.

"It was hard, scary and intense," Gates said. "It has been an epic. We are elated to be back on dry land."

The most positive of the four, physical education teacher and surfboat champion Macready, 25, described the experience as "absolutely brilliant". "I thought it would break me mentally, but it didn't," she said.

Her mother Gayle Macready was not as confident. "They were out in huge seas, like a ping-pong ball, they had no keel and were bouncing about like a sock in a clothes drier."

Tozer, 34, showed off the layers of calluses on her hands, while Johnson, 30, an airforce navigator, described the experience as "moments of brilliance interspersed with pain and suffering".

"Physically I had had enough after four days. It was a brilliant experience but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone."

Article Source: theaustralian.news.com.au