Mt Pembroke (attempt)

We paddled out the sounds on a beautiful glassy day, and bush bashed our way up the Thurso River to camp at around 1100m. The west coast bush exhausted us.

The next day we woke at 5am to push to the summit of Mt Pembroke. Fresh snow made it difficult to get about 1800m, and so we retreated for a nap in the sun and a slow wonder down to camp on the banks of the lower Thurso River, taking a dip under a waterfall along the way. We had 3 days of beautiful weather.

The next morning we thought we’d launch off the beach at 10am to catch the 11am switch from offshore to onshore (our mate Pete assured us that the 11am switch was clockwork). We turned into the mouth of the sounds at 10.30am with a fierce headwind, and instead of dying and switching it increased. We spent the next 4 hours battling massive swirling gusts of headwind and chop, often going over our heads. We were borrowing an expedition River kayak from our mates Simone and Marcel, and if we were to capsize it would have sunk without a doubt. Quite a terrifying experience with no reprieve most of the way along the sheer cliffs, but we made it to the shore eventually.

We later learnt that another party who was paddling back from Harrison River (part way up the sounds) called 111 from their kayaks and got rescued. Could have easily been us!