Today I paddled from Merimbula to Eden. Along the way I saw a seal jumping and diving up ahead ahead of me, moving fast. It surfaced again right next to me and just then I paddled over the top of a flashing, spiralling school of salmon which the seal was herding together and feasting from. It gave me a real thrill to see it in action and up so close.
As I approached Eden I got a view of Green Cape. Its a significant moment in the trip becuase once I go "around the corner" I leave the familiar, relatively protected waters of East Coast NSW for the South Coast of Victoria. I must admit that for the first time I felt some trepidatipon at what lies ahead (mixed with excitment of course). There was a slightly ominous feeling in the air too, which at first I put down to Green Cape. Later I heard that a Great White Shark had attacked a local abalone diver in Eden. The shark swallowed him head first but his lead-lined diving vest protected him and then the fought the shark off with an abalone chisel. Hopefully none like that come my way.
Coming into Eden one is struck by two things - one is the beauty of Two Fold Bay. The other is the massive pile of native forest woodchips on the Southen side of the bay. The Chip mill processes 1,000,000 tonnes of forest products per year, mostly native forest from South East NSW and Victoria. There is strong oppostion to the mill, as well as strong support for those connected to it as an employer. Whichever side one sits on, there is no doubt that it has split the community. I also did some reserach on the Climate Change impacts of this much forestry, and its enormous. According to ANU reserach, cutting down 10,000Ha of forest in Victoria lead to carbon emmissions equivalent to 2,000,000 cars. The mill is responsible for a similar amount of forest destruction. It doesn't seem worth it to do $50,000,000 worth of climate damage in order to employ 73 people, especially when the profits of the operation go offshore to the mills' Japanese owners.
Arriving Eden, I received a very warm welcome from Amanda, Ruth, Phili, and Natalie and her three daughters. Phil interviewed me for WIN TV and Natalie invited us over for a barbie at her gorgoeus house up the river. There we swam, met her husband John and their pigs, cows, dogs and horses. John and Nat are graziers who have moved to Eden to run courses on horsemanship. They have the most magnirficent horses I have ever seen in my life - huge, glossy, and bursting with life and health. John doesn't treat them with heaps of chemicals, he just gives them lots of attention and makes sure that they're happy. It shows