Peter & Helen's Sailing Adventures

This blog was started in Australia, but we did not have time to finish it and we are now back in the UK. It was a strange trip in that whilst our plan had been to sail up towards the Whitsunday Islands again, our broker had potential buyers for CC ‘in tow’ and was keen we hung around Scarborough. So, we only went sailing once, and that was just to do sea trials, and much of the second half of our stay was spent on a road trip.

It was no hardship being in the marina, as the weather was nearly always sunny, if rather windy, there is plenty to do in and around Scarborough, and we also spent time in Brisbane visiting galleries and museums. We did have one very stormy day/night, when we recorded 42 knot winds in the marina and the most incredible thunder storm with four hours of lightening putting on a stunning show. It was all around us, happily never directly overhead, with both sheet and forked lightening. Really spectacular.

We spent three weeks on the road seeing more of this wonderful country. The first three days were long days of driving to get down to South West Victoria. Our first day we drove about 400 miles and went via Boonoo Boonoo National Park for a walk by the river where there were platypus, but we were too early in the day to see them. Our route then went through Bolivia, Dundee, Glen Innes, past Stonehenge (there is actually a replica), through Glencoe and Llangothlin and on to our first accommodation at Armidale, all familiar place names, which I guess reflects the origin of the people who settled there. We were staying out of town, and, driving slowly back in the dark we rounded a bend and came across a large male Kangaroo in the middle of the road. He was obviously confused by our headlights and took some time to move off. Thank goodness we had been well warned to take extra care from dusk onwards. Throughout our trip we saw innumerable dead kangaroos, wallabies and wombats on the side of the road. The huge lorry ‘trains’ with their enormous ‘Roo bars’ would hardly feel a collision with a Roo, but it would have been rather different for us in our hire car.

Our second day we did a similar mileage, but most on ‘B’ roads which were great to drive on with virtually no traffic. Initially we could see that much of the country has been suffering from drought, it was mostly cattle and sheep farming, however, further south it was flatter and wetter with lots of arable and thousands of acres of Oilseed rape, or canola as it is called here. This is horse breeding country, and we passed a fabulous and huge thoroughbred stud, now called Emirates, but formerly Blandford stud, and could see hundreds of mares and foals out in the paddocks.

We also went through the former outback, gold rush town of Gulgong. A ‘heritage’ town which used to feature on the $10 note, as it was the childhood home of the famous bush poet Henry Lawson who was also on the note. It looked a really interesting place to stop, however, it was quite late in the day and we still had quite a way to travel to get to Cowra, and did not want to be driving at night, so we pressed on.

Our third day was the most boring with regard to scenery, lots of bush and flat lands. As a result roads don’t have to go round anything and we had one stretch of road which was 30km, straight! We did go through the ‘cherry capital’ of Australia which was very pretty with all the blossom, but, that did not make up for cracking our windscreen (stone thrown up by a lorry). However, we got to Bendigo, our next stop, in time to book the car into a garage the next morning, and, as we did not have far to go to get to Hamilton, where our friends Jim and Jan live, we could easily afford the two and a half hours it took to fit and cure the glue.

We drove to Hamilton via the Grampians, a popular mountain area in west Victoria. We saw a huge number of Kangaroos and our first wild Emus and, when I was dozing, Peter also saw an Echidna walking along the side of the road. It was a pretty drive, but too popular for us to want to do more than just drive through.

Jim and Jan (friends with another Tayana 48) farm Aberdeen Angus cattle and mixed breed sheep on what they called a small farm, but seemed large to us, just outside the town of Hamilton. They are passionate about their livestock and their environment, and are committed to planting thousands of indigenous plants and trees on any land they own. We had a tour of the main property on our first afternoon, including seeing all the bulls, the oldest of which knows exactly when it is time to be put with the cows and stands waiting in anticipation by the gate for several days before he gets down to the job in hand (unfortunate choice of words but you know what I mean). However his enthusiasm is not matched by his fitness these days, and he is usually lame after a few days. Drought is not a problem on their farm this year, it has rained for weeks on end this winter, and the whole farm is very lush and green. However, bush fires are an ever present hazard in the summer, and they do not leave the property until the first rains of Autumn. Weather seems a constant issue for Australian farmers, but it always has been, and they just have to deal with it.

The next day we were taken to see the sheep which were due to start lambing in 5 days. However, the ewes had not got that memo and had already started to lamb, sadly one ewe dying in the process overnight. They interfere as little as possible in the lambing, the ewes remain outside and are just checked over twice a day unless there are any indication of problems. The mixed breed sheep that they now have tend to have few complications, unlike the Merino sheep they used to run. We had all planned to go on ‘Jim’s tour’ of the area in the afternoon, however, with the sheep lambing early Jan stayed behind to keep an eye on them, particularly the first time mums.

Jim and Jan are incredibly hard working, doing all the work on the farm, bar shearing, themselves, so, that includes fencing, hay making, silage making and planting and Jim does some of the building work too. They also have horses, Jan trims their feet and used to shoe them, and she is heavily involved in her local RDA, basically running it, which takes many hours each week.

Jim’s tour was really interesting, and we saw so much we would have missed had we tried to do it ourselves. Amongst other things we saw waterfalls, an historic railway, the volcano with the longest lava flow in the world (it flows 50+ km to the sea), lava blisters, blue and red gum plantations and we ended up in Port Fairy, a lovely little coastal town where we could look out over the Southern Ocean. It looked cold and unforgiving and reinforced our decision never to sail there! Much rather have our seas coming from the Tropics rather than Antarctica!

From Hamilton we drove further west and just into South Australia before turning east again to visit Cape Bridgewater with its blowholes and petrified forest, followed by the lighthouse at Cape Nelson and on to our accommodation for the night in Warrnambool where we discovered the owners used to live in Swan Hill and know our niece’s husband’s family.

The next day was our much awaited Great Ocean Road adventure and we set off early in order to be able to visit as many of the viewing areas as possible. Starting with the Bay of Islands, London Bridge and The Arch and, after Port Campbell, Loch Ard Gorge and the 12 Apostles and many sights in between. The rock formations and scenery were stunning and made even more dramatic by the weather, which alternated between squalls and glorious sunshine between the clouds, and wind which whipped up the waves that were crashing on the rocks and shore. We occasionally had to wait in the car while a squall passed over, but never for very long. Hundreds of pictures taken and a really great day which lived up to expectations.

Having been to Melbourne before we decided to keep well away from the traffic and made our way further East via the ferry from Queenscliff and were rewarded with dolphins playing in the wake. The onward drive was not particularly interesting, but we did a detour to walk on the huge, almost deserted, Waratah beach before checking into our motel in Foster. Apart from the tree types, you could believe you were in England as the scenery near Foster is so similar. Motels seem to be the accommodation of choice for Australians travelling and there are many of them. The ones we stayed at were great and far from the seedy image of American ‘B’ movies.

We devoted the whole of the next day to visiting Wilson’s Promontory National Park, a, mostly, wilderness area much of which is either inaccessible or only accessible by foot. We walked on Squeaky beach, climbed Mount Bishop, with fabulous views from the top, drove to the tidal river area and walked to Millers Landing and back where the most southerly Mangroves in the world have established. We saw emu and kangaroos early on, but, later in the day were very lucky to see our first Wombat that wasn’t by the side of the road covered in tyre marks and with its legs in the air! This real live animal was by the side of gravel track we were on and humoured us by staying around long enough for some videos and photos. It seems the standard wombat defence mechanism when surprised or disturbed is to ‘freeze’ not a good plan if you’re on a road, and hence the apparently high numbers of roadkill.

Carrying on east and north the next day, we first stopped at the very pretty Agnes Falls, and then went on to Paynesville in the beautiful Gippsland Lakes area, behind 90 mile beach, and caught the ferry over to Raymond Island, to see Koalas. There are dozens of wild Koalas cohabiting with the people on the island, and, once you get your eye in, you can see them in gum trees in gardens right by the road. We saw about 20 on our wander through the streets, including one mother cuddling a baby. Our first wild Koalas, very exciting.

We were staying at Lakes Entrance, and, as the weather forecast for the next day was not great we decided to backtrack a little and drive to Metung, a lovely little holiday, and boating town where we saw 3 Dragons (type of boat we used to own). After that we headed north, inland up the Great Alpine road just to have a look at another area. We stopped at the Little River Inn in Ensay for coffee. It was like stepping back in time, all dark wood, very little lighting and old newspaper articles and black and white photos – reminded us of the outback bar in Crocodile Dundee, but without Donk and his mates! We were the only customers and, with little passing traffic, it was no wonder that the owner not only ran the inn, but also ran the post office, did the mail run three times a week, and had a small holding with pigs, goats sheep etc. to make ends meet. However, he seemed very happy with life and loved living in such a remote area.

On returning to Lakes Entrance the weather was again fine, so we walked over the bridge and onto 90 mile beach and made our way down to the narrow navigable entrance between lakes and ocean. There we could see Sea Lions resting on rocks and with such a large area of water exiting through the channel there was a seriously fast current running which caused what are called ‘standing waves’ to form when the speed of the incoming wave is equal to the speed of the outgoing current. With big swells running these can be quite large and this day the seals were having a great time surfing in and out of these waves. We watched a boat returning through the standing waves against the current. It was not exactly struggling, but the engine was running at high speed, and you would not want to lose power.

From Lakes Entrance we drove, via Ben river, where we saw a streaker rolling in a large puddle in the road (a stag weekend we think!), much to the amusement of his mates looking through the bar windows. On to Mallacoota where we were to extend our stay from two to three days as we enjoyed it so much. It was wild weather, and still blowing hard when we arrived. Our accommodation had a covered veranda and Peter spotted a Koala trying to shelter in a nearby tree. We had no idea there were Koalas in this area, but we were to see quite a number over the three days, including three in one tree, again visible from our verandah.

The lady in the shop where we stopped for groceries told us about a sheltered walk near to town and, from the cliff top, despite the wind and waves, we could see the ‘blows’ of whales out to sea. The humpbacks are swimming south just now, returning to Antarctica to feed. The following day we decided to drive up to Eden, a well know stop off for Humpbacks, to see if we could get a better view, and, after about half an hour of looking from a prominent headland, we were rewarded by three humpbacks, Mother, baby and escort, swimming really close in. When whales are spotted in one of the bays the towns whale museum sounds a siren to let visitors and locals know they are there, so we were soon joined by lots of people keen to see and photograph these wonderful creatures. It is still always a thrill to see cetaceans and I am sure one we will never tire of.

Next stop was the whale museum which was fascinating. It told the story of how killer whales, or Orca, used to help the whalers find and catch humpbacks and other whales. The local pod would split into three groups. The first group would be out at sea waiting to waylay any passing humpbacks and would then harry them and drive them into Twofold bay, where the sentinels patrolling the entrance to the bay would stop them escaping and the third group would chase and harry them some more until they were exhausted. At this point, three of the whales would swim over to the whaling station and get the attention of the whalers by leaping out of the water and splashing and generally making a commotion until the men took to their rowed whaler boats. The Orca would then guide the whalers to the stricken whale for the denouement. The whale would be marked with a buoy and left for the Orca to have their reward, which was to eat the tongue (which could weigh up to 4 tons) and the lips, leaving the rest, including the blubber, which was the part the whalers wanted, for the men to collect the next day. Such incredibly intelligent but vulnerable creatures. Man has a lot to answer for! The good news is that all the whale species of Australia have made good recoveries, with humpbacks in particular increasing from a few hundred back in the 1960’s when whaling was banned to over 26,000 counted last year. Their population increases by around 10% per annum, but the biggest threat now it seems is to their main food source, with huge new fleets of Chinese trawlers scooping up millions of tons of krill in Antarctica. Seems we don’t learn!

This hunting co-operation went on for many years and up until 1930 when ‘Old Tom’, one of the whales which would fetch the men, died. His skeleton hangs in the museum. Many of the whales were given names and there were many stories of them helping humans in other ways. When a whaler fell into the water, which was a common occurrence, the Orca would swim round protectively until the man made it back to the boat or shore. An extraordinary story of understanding and assistance between man and beast.

The next day we spent walking and exploring round the Mallacoota area. Lots of birds and several Koalas, and, towards the end of our walk, while I was looking up into the trees for more Koalas, something made me look down to see a 2 metres, mostly black, snake sunning itself on the path. A few more steps and I would have trodden on it. A car stopped and the driver said the snake was a Red Bellied Black and it was ok, by which we took him to mean that it was not venomous. Imagine our consternation when we googled it and found out that although not particularly aggressive, it is actually very venomous! We did not go too close, but, having seen how fast it could move, maybe we would have stayed even further away.

The following day we were on the road again. We drove up the coast as far as Tathra and then turned inland to end up at our next accommodation near to East Jindabyne. We had a huge amount of rain on the way, so not much stopping, but, by the time we arrived at the B and B (fantastic, albeit along a gravel track in the middle of nowhere) it had dried up and we were able to walk from the property to take in the views of the ‘Alpine’ region which is where we were headed the next day. We had previously checked in Cooma that the roads in the region were snow free, and we made for the Kosciusko National Park and the skiing village of Thredbo. Although, with late snow, the season had been extended this year, and there was still plenty of snow to be seen, the slopes were not open, and most of the village was shut. However, we had not gone there for the amenities, but to walk one of the tracks and we had a wonderful walk along the Thredbo valley in glorious unbroken sunshine, crossing a couple of suspension bridges on the way. We could see the top of Mt Kosciusko, Australia’s highest mountain and, if we had been later in the season might have been tempted to walk one of the tracks to the top. This early and the hiking routes are closed.

From Thredbo we carried on along the tortuous Alpine Way, with plenty of stops to admire the views and then joined the Murray Valley Highway to Albury where we stayed a night before arriving the next day at Moama/Echuca (either side of the Murray river) where we were to meet up and stay with family before moving on to Swan Hill where my niece, Jes and Australian husband John were to have a second wedding party for all their Australian family and friends, and a few Brits. For the 250-300 of us there (Johns family are of Italian extraction, and there are a lot of them!) it was a fabulous and joyous ‘Do’, very laid back and Australian, with the blessing being conducted by the Murray river in front of an old sheep shearing shed, by a wonderfully casual priest, who reminded Peter of Friar Tuck in ‘Robin Hood Prince of Thieves’. We felt very lucky to have been included in both the wedding parties.

Wedding over and the next day we had to hightail it back to Scarborough in just two days, 500+ miles one day and a little less the next, as CC was booked to come out of the water for a bottom survey followed by a sea trial for our potential buyer. In the event, the weather was horrendous and too windy to put CC in the travel lift, and we ended up lifting her on the Thursday and doing sea trials on the Friday before flying back to the UK on the Saturday. Talk about last minute, and with all sorts of complications rather stressful too. However, our buyer was happy and the sale was agreed and contracts signed. We were less happy and found the whole concept of finally saying goodbye to such a wonderful boat which has not only been our home, but looked after us for the past six years, very emotional, with the inevitable “are we doing the right thing?” A week on and we are still struggling with the thought that we will probably never see her again. Given the troubles around Somalia had blocked our route to the Med. the alternative of three long ocean passages to get CC home was not attractive, so our heads say we did the right thing, but our hearts are heavy.

So, sadly, this is the last blog from Common Crossing, however, we are already looking for another boat to continue our sea going adventures, but nearer to home, friends and family, and hope we can find a worthy replacement.

This blog was started in Australia, but we did not have time to finish it and we are now back in the UK. It was a strange trip in that whilst our plan had been to sail up towards the Whitsunday Islands again, our broker had potential buyers for CC ‘in tow’ and was keen we hung around Scarborough. So, we only went sailing once, and that was just to do sea trials, and much of the second half of our stay was spent on a road trip.

It was no hardship being in the marina, as the weather was nearly always sunny, if rather windy, there is plenty to do in and around Scarborough, and we also spent time in Brisbane visiting galleries and museums. We did have one very stormy day/night, when we recorded 42 knot winds in the marina and the most incredible thunder storm with four hours of lightening putting on a stunning show. It was all around us, happily never directly overhead, with both sheet and forked lightening. Really spectacular.

We spent three weeks on the road seeing more of this wonderful country. The first three days were long days of driving to get down to South West Victoria. Our first day we drove about 400 miles and went via Boonoo Boonoo National Park for a walk by the river where there were platypus, but we were too early in the day to see them.

Pretty pretty!

More pretty pretty!

Our route then went through Bolivia, Dundee, Glen Innes, past Stonehenge (there is actually a replica), through Glencoe and Llangothlin and on to our first accommodation at Armidale, all familiar place names, which I guess reflects the origin of the people who settled there. We were staying out of town, and, driving slowly back in the dark we rounded a bend and came across a large male Kangaroo in the middle of the road. He was obviously confused by our headlights and took some time to move off. Thank goodness we had been well warned to take extra care from dusk onwards. Throughout our trip we saw innumerable dead kangaroos, wallabies and wombats on the side of the road. The huge lorry ‘trains’ with their enormous ‘Roo bars’ would hardly feel a collision with a Roo, but it would have been rather different for us in our hire car.

Our second day we did a similar mileage, but most on ‘B’ roads which were great to drive on with virtually no traffic. Initially we could see that much of the country has been suffering from drought, it was mostly cattle and sheep farming, however, further south it was flatter and wetter with lots of arable and thousands of acres of Oilseed rape, or canola as it is called here. This is horse breeding country, and we passed a fabulous and huge thoroughbred stud, now called Emirates, but formerly Blandford stud, and could see hundreds of mares and foals out in the paddocks.

We also went through the former outback, gold rush town of Gulgong. A ‘heritage’ town which used to feature on the $10 note, as it was the childhood home of the famous bush poet Henry Lawson who was also on the note. It looked a really interesting place to stop, however, it was quite late in the day and we still had quite a way to travel to get to Cowra, and did not want to be driving at night, so we pressed on.

‘Downtown’ in rural Oz

Our third day was the most boring with regard to scenery, lots of bush and flat lands. As a result roads don’t have to go round anything and we had one stretch of road which was 30km, straight!

Don’t you wish our roads were like this!

We did go through the ‘cherry capital’ of Australia which was very pretty with all the blossom, but, that did not make up for cracking our windscreen (stone thrown up by a lorry). However, we got to Bendigo, our next stop, in time to book the car into a garage the next morning, and, as we did not have far to go to get to Hamilton, where our friends Jim and Jan live, we could easily afford the two and a half hours it took to fit and cure the glue.

We drove to Hamilton via the Grampians, a popular mountain area in west Victoria. We saw a huge number of Kangaroos and our first wild Emus and, when I was dozing, Peter also saw an Echidna walking along the side of the road. It was a pretty drive, but too popular for us to want to do more than just drive through.

Lunch time!

Emu

Jim and Jan (friends with another Tayana 48) farm Aberdeen Angus cattle and mixed breed sheep on what they called a small farm, but seemed large to us, just outside the town of Hamilton. They are passionate about their livestock and their environment, and are committed to planting thousands of indigenous plants and trees on any land they own. We had a tour of the main property on our first afternoon, including seeing all the bulls, the oldest of which knows exactly when it is time to be put with the cows and stands waiting in anticipation by the gate for several days before he gets down to the job in hand (unfortunate choice of words but you know what I mean). However his enthusiasm is not matched by his fitness these days, and he is usually lame after a few days. Drought is not a problem on their farm this year, it has rained for weeks on end this winter, and the whole farm is very lush and green. However, bush fires are an ever present hazard in the summer, and they do not leave the property until the first rains of Autumn. Weather seems a constant issue for Australian farmers, but it always has been, and they just deal with it.

The next day we were taken to see the sheep which were due to start lambing in 5 days. However, the ewes had not got that memo and had already started to lamb, sadly one ewe dying in the process overnight. They interfere as little as possible in the lambing, the ewes remain outside and are just checked over twice a day unless

there are any indication of problems. The mixed breed sheep that they now have tend to have few complications, unlike the Merino sheep they used to run. We had all planned to go on ‘Jim’s tour’ of the area in the afternoon, however, with the sheep lambing early Jan stayed behind to keep an eye on them, particularly the first time mums.

Jim and Jan are incredibly hard working, doing all the work on the farm, bar shearing, themselves, so, that includes fencing, hay making, silage making and planting and Jim does some of the building work too. They also have horses, Jan trims their feet and used to shoe them, and she is heavily involved in her local RDA, basically running it, which takes many hours each week.

Jim’s tour was really interesting, and we saw so much we would have missed had we tried to do it ourselves. Amongst other things we saw waterfalls, an historic railway, the volcano with the longest lava flow in the world (it flows 50+ km to the sea), lava blisters, blue and red gum plantations and we ended up in Port Fairy, a lovely little coastal town where we could look out over the Southern Ocean. It looked cold and unforgiving and reinforced our decision never to sail there! Much rather have our seas coming from the Tropics rather than Antarctica!

Wannon Falls

Nigretta Falls

Lava ‘blisters’

Could be England

Heritage hanging on!

Pretty Port Fairy

From Hamilton we drove further west and just into South Australia before turning east again to visit Cape Bridgewater with its blowholes and petrified forest, followed by the lighthouse at Cape Nelson and on to our accommodation for the night in Warrnambool where we discovered the owners used to live in Swan Hill and know our niece’s husband’s family.

The next day was our much awaited Great Ocean Road adventure and we set off early in order to be able to visit as many of the viewing areas as possible. Starting with the Bay of Islands, London Bridge and The Arch and, after Port Campbell, Loch Ard Gorge and the 12 Apostles and many sights in between. The rock formations and scenery were stunning and made even more dramatic by the weather, which alternated between squalls and glorious sunshine between the clouds, and wind which whipped up the waves that were crashing on the rocks and shore. We occasionally had to wait in the car while a squall passed over, but never for very long. Hundreds of pictures taken and a really great day which lived up to expectations.

Here are a few!

Having been to Melbourne before we decided to keep well away from the traffic and made our way further East via the ferry from Queenscliff and were rewarded with dolphins playing in the wake. The onward drive was not particularly interesting, but we did a detour to walk on the huge, almost deserted, Waratah beach before checking into our motel in Foster.

Waratah beach. Could be in Norfolk!

Apart from the tree types, you could believe you were in England as the scenery near Foster is so similar. Motels seem to be the accommodation of choice for Australians travelling and there are many of them. The ones we stayed at were great and far from the seedy image of American ‘B’ movies.

We devoted the whole of the next day to visiting Wilson’s Promontory National Park, a, mostly, wilderness area much of which is either inaccessible or only accessible by foot. We walked on Squeaky beach, climbed Mount Bishop, with fabulous views from the top, drove to the tidal river area and walked to Millers Landing and back where the most southerly Mangroves in the world have established.

Squeaky Beach

View from top of Mt Bishop

Mt Bishop

Most southerly mangroves

We saw emu and kangaroos early on, but, later in the day were very lucky to see our first Wombat that wasn’t by the side of the road covered in tyre marks and with its legs in the air! This real live animal was by the side of gravel track we were on and humoured us by staying around long enough for some videos and photos. It seems the standard wombat defence mechanism when surprised or disturbed is to ‘freeze’ not a good plan if you’re on a road, and hence the apparently high numbers of roadkill.

Rare live Wombat!

Carrying on east and north the next day, we first stopped at the very pretty Agnes Falls, and then went on to Paynesville in the beautiful Gippsland Lakes area, behind 90 mile beach, and caught the ferry over to Raymond Island, to see Koalas. There are dozens of wild Koalas cohabiting with the people on the island, and, once you get your eye in, you can see them in gum trees in gardens right by the road. We saw about 20 on our wander through the streets, including one mother cuddling a baby. Our first wild Koalas, very exciting.

Typical poses

We were staying at Lakes Entrance, and, as the weather forecast for the next day was not great we decided to backtrack a little and drive to Metung, a lovely little holiday, and boating town where we saw 3 Dragons (type of boat we used to own). After that we headed north, inland up the Great Alpine road just to have a look at another area. We stopped at the Little River Inn in Ensay for coffee. It was like stepping back in time, all dark wood, very little lighting and old newspaper articles and black and white photos – reminded us of the outback bar in Crocodile Dundee, but without Donk and his mates! We were the only customers and, with little passing traffic, it was no wonder that the owner not only ran the inn, but also ran the post office, did the mail run three times a week, and had a small holding with pigs, goats sheep etc. to make ends meet. However, he seemed very happy with life and loved living in such a remote area.

On returning to Lakes Entrance the weather was again fine, so we walked over the bridge and onto 90 mile beach and made our way down to the narrow navigable entrance between lakes and ocean. There we could see Sea Lions resting on rocks and with such a large area of water exiting through the channel there was a seriously fast current running which caused what are called ‘standing waves’ to form when the speed of the incoming wave is equal to the speed of the outgoing current. With big swells running these can be quite large and this day the seals were having a great time surfing in and out of these waves. We watched a boat returning through the standing waves against the current. It was not exactly struggling, but the engine was running at high speed, and you would not want to lose power.

How many Sea Lions can you count?

From Lakes Entrance we drove, via Ben river, where we saw a streaker rolling in a large puddle in the road (a stag weekend we think!), much to the amusement of his mates looking through the bar windows. On to Mallacoota where we were to extend our stay from two to three days as we enjoyed it so much. It was wild weather, and still blowing hard when we arrived. Our accommodation had a covered veranda and Peter spotted a Koala trying to shelter in a nearby tree. We had no idea there were Koalas in this area, but we were to see quite a number over the three days, including three in one tree, again visible from our verandah.

The lady in the shop where we stopped for groceries told us about a sheltered walk near to town and, from the cliff top, despite the wind and waves, we could see the ‘blows’ of whales out to sea. The humpbacks are swimming south just now, returning to Antarctica to feed. The following day we decided to drive up to Eden, a well know stop off for Humpbacks, to see if we could get a better view, and, after about half an hour of looking from a prominent headland, we were rewarded by three humpbacks, Mother, baby and escort, swimming really close in. When whales are spotted in one of the bays the towns whale museum sounds a siren to let visitors and locals know they are there, so we were soon joined by lots of people keen to see and photograph these wonderful creatures. It is still always a thrill to see cetaceans and I am sure one we will never tire of.

Mum and baby humpback.

Next stop was the whale museum which was fascinating. It told the story of how killer whales, or Orca, used to help the whalers find and catch humpbacks and other whales. The local pod would split into three groups. The first group would be out at sea waiting to waylay any passing humpbacks and would then harry them and drive them into Twofold bay, where the sentinels patrolling the entrance to the bay would stop them escaping and the third group would chase and harry them some more until they were exhausted. At this point, three of the whales would swim over to the whaling station and get the attention of the whalers by leaping out of the water and splashing and generally making a commotion until the men took to their rowed whaler boats. The Orca would then guide the whalers to the stricken whale for the denouement. The whale would be marked with a buoy and left for the Orca to have their reward, which was to eat the tongue (which could weigh up to 4 tons) and the lips, leaving the rest, including the blubber, which was the part the whalers wanted, for the men to collect the next day. Such incredibly intelligent but vulnerable creatures. Man has a lot to answer for! The good news is that all the whale species of Australia have made good recoveries, with humpbacks in particular increasing from a few hundred back in the 1960’s when whaling was banned to over 26,000 counted last year. Their population increases by around 10% per annum, but the biggest threat now it seems is to their main food source, with huge new fleets of Chinese trawlers scooping up millions of tons of krill in Antarctica. Seems we don’t learn!

This hunting co-operation went on for many years and up until 1930 when ‘Old Tom’, one of the whales which would fetch the men, died. His skeleton hangs in the museum. Many of the whales were given names and there were many stories of them helping humans in other ways. When a whaler fell into the water, which was a common occurrence, the Orca would swim round protectively until the man made it back to the boat or shore. An extraordinary story of understanding and assistance between man and beast.

The next day we spent walking and exploring round the Mallacoota area. Lots of birds and several Koalas, and, towards the end of our walk, while I was looking up into the trees for more Koalas, something made me look down to see a 2 metres, mostly black, snake sunning itself on the path. A few more steps and I would have trodden on it. A car stopped and the driver said the snake was a Red Bellied Black and it was ok, by which we took him to mean that it was not venomous. Imagine our consternation when we googled it and found out that although not particularly aggressive, it is actually very venomous! We did not go too close, but, having seen how fast it could move, maybe we would have stayed even further away.

Red Bellied Black Snake – very venomous!

The following day we were on the road again. We drove up the coast as far as Tathra and then turned inland to end up at our next accommodation near to East Jindabyne. We had a huge amount of rain on the way, so not much stopping, but, by the time we arrived at the B and B (fantastic, albeit along a gravel track in the middle of nowhere) it had dried up and we were able to walk from the property to take in the views of the ‘Alpine’ region which is where we were headed the next day. We had previously checked in Cooma that the roads in the region were snow free, and we made for the Kosciusko National Park and the skiing village of Thredbo. Although, with late snow, the season had been extended this year, and there was still plenty of snow to be seen, the slopes were not open, and most of the village was shut. However, we had not gone there for the amenities, but to walk one of the tracks and we had a wonderful walk along the Thredbo valley in glorious unbroken sunshine, crossing a couple of suspension bridges on the way. We could see the top of Mt Kosciusko, Australia’s highest mountain and, if we had been later in the season might have been tempted to walk one of the tracks to the top. This early and the hiking routes are closed.

A few memories from Thredbo

From Thredbo we carried on along the tortuous Alpine Way, with plenty of stops to admire the views and then joined the Murray Valley Highway to Albury where we stayed a night before arriving the next day at Moama/Echuca (either side of the Murray river) where we were to meet up and stay with family before moving on to Swan Hill where my niece, Jes and Australian husband John were to have a second wedding party for all their Australian family and friends, and a few Brits. For the 250-300 of us there (Johns family are of Italian extraction, and there are a lot of them!) it was a fabulous and joyous ‘Do’, very laid back and Australian, with the blessing being conducted by the Murray river in front of an old sheep shearing shed, by a wonderfully casual priest, who reminded Peter of Friar Tuck in ‘Robin Hood Prince of Thieves’. We felt very lucky to have been included in both the wedding parties.

Wedding over and the next day we had to hightail it back to Scarborough in just two days, 500+ miles one day and a little less the next, as CC was booked to come out of the water for a bottom survey followed by a sea trial for our potential buyer. In the event, the weather was horrendous and too windy to put CC in the travel lift, and we ended up lifting her on the Thursday and doing sea trials on the Friday before flying back to the UK on the Saturday. Talk about last minute, and with all sorts of complications rather stressful too. However, our buyer was happy and the sale was agreed and contracts signed. We were less happy and found the whole concept of finally saying goodbye to such a wonderful boat which has not only been our home, but looked after us for the past six years, very emotional, with the inevitable “are we doing the right thing?” A week on and we are still struggling with the thought that we will probably never see her again. Given the troubles around Somalia had blocked our route to the Med. the alternative of three long ocean passages to get CC home was not attractive, so our heads say we did the right thing, but our hearts are heavy.

The final chapter – haul out for survey, and sea trial – our last sail 😢😢

So, sadly, this is the last blog from Common Crossing, however, we are already looking for another boat to continue our sea going adventures, but nearer to home, friends and family, and hope we can find a worthy replacement.

After 10 months away we are back on board CC in Scarborough marina, north of Brisbane. When we arrived back here from the Whitsundays last October, we made the, rather last minute, decision to put CC on the market. Neither of the two options going forward, to get back to Europe from here, appealed, either past Somalia and up the Red Sea, or lots of long passages. First across the Indian Ocean, going round the Cape of Good Hope, across the South Atlantic to Brazil, north, up through the Caribbean, then back East across the North Atlantic.
Although our long held ambition, and original intention, was to sail around the world, we had hoped that by now the Red Sea would be a viable option, but the current instability in the area, and the fact that small boats are, again, being targeted has put paid to that. We could, also carry on up into Indonesia, but we took the decision that Australia was probably the last, best place to sell.
Before you can sell a boat in Australia you have to import it, and pay all the tax (circa 15%) and ‘get all your ducks in a row’ with regard to paperwork. It cannot even be listed for sale until all that is done, and, despite the fact that we paid our money by the end of October, and usually everything goes through in 2 to 3 weeks, it was February and the end of summer before our broker was able to list her. The upshot being that, despite lots of interest, she has not yet sold and we are considering other options such as shipping, possibly back to the US. We did not like being away from CC for so long, but, we had her regularly cleaned, the broker is on site to keep an eye on her and open her up every so often and, the only problem on our return was a bit of a ‘beard’ which a diver has cleaned off along with the rest of the hull.
We had hoped we might have time to sail back up to the Whitsundays while we are here, but, with the unpredictability of the weather a 600+ mile each way trip in less than 5 weeks seemed a step too far, and the chances are quite high that we could have been stuck somewhere, so, we may do some local exploring around Moreton Bay.
We stopped off in Singapore on our journey over to Oz. A first for me, Peter had visited briefly for work some years ago. Initially we used the hop on and off buses to get our bearings and see some of the sights, and then went on their version of the underground and local buses. It was as hot and humid as expected, and the city is expanding at a great rate, but, due to the expense of buying a car, (100% import tax) plus the necessity of buying a permit to actually own a car, the roads were not as busy as expected, nor was the air quality too bad.  
We found there was more than enough to keep us entertained for three days and some of the places we visited included, the Chinese quarter, the Indian quarter, the Marina area, the Gardens by the Bay, the Botanical gardens and the Singapore Flyer, a big wheel similar to the London Eye, only bigger, with fabulous views over the city and the bay. The gardens by the bay are amazing and built on land reclaimed from the sea. There are two large greenhouse domes, the flower dome, and the Cloud forest, housing vegetation from cooler regions. No expense has been spared, and, a 500 yr old Camellia, found in China was bought for 30,000 Singapore $, (about £17,000). We enjoyed the Gardens by the bay, but, even more fabulous, for me at any rate, was the original Botanic garden, which has recently achieved World Heritage status, and particularly the Orchid garden. I am now a huge fan of orchids, having seen so many exquisite examples in myriad colours, from tiny blooms of just a few mm long to large, blousy, colourful flowers.
We were also able to visit the Singapore Cricket Club due to friends being over to visit family the same time as us. The club has an enviable position in the heart of Singapore, and it was lovely to be able to sit on the upper terrace having drinks as the sun went down.
Since getting back to the boat we have had some projects to do, as well as a thorough interior clean, amazing how the dust and grit gets in. We have re-acquainted ourselves with the area, visiting the local Sunday market and Bee Gees Way in Redcliffe, and , this weekend went to the Redcliffe festival, music, stalls and entertainment, with an excellent fireworks display on Saturday night.  
We have walked along the coast from the marina, and, one day, drove a couple of hours to the other side of Ipswich to watch some barrel racing. We first saw this up near Mackay last year, and, while the standard was not quite as high, it was still very entertaining, made more so by the number of children taking part, including a tiny tot, less than a year old who could barely sit up. She was riding a tiny pony made to look like a unicorn (the whole meet was a benefit for a lady whose daughter died in a car crash recently, so there was lots of dressing up). The said pony was coloured pink, with sparkles on its rump and a multicoloured unicorn horn fastened between its ears. There were several unicorns to be seen, including one pony who took exception to its horn and was not in the mood to cooperate.
Last week had some excitement on the marina, as, for two days a film crew were here, filming on the dock, in several boats, and up in the marina yard. They set up, what seemed to us, a huge “village” on the car park opposite, trailers, catering vans, technical vans etc. (though we were told it was quite small compared with many productions). The scenes were for a mini series called ‘Harrow’, which comes out next year, and stars the Welsh actor, Ioan Gruffudd. We could sit on the boat and watch them doing take after take, and, occasionally had to wait before walking down the dock while they shot a scene, though they were lovely, very polite and went out of their way to respect the marina users. Anyway, we will be watching when it comes out, to see Scarborough marina, meant to be Airlie beach marina, star in the show, and see if CC makes an appearance too.
The weather since we arrived back has mostly been glorious. Wall to wall sunshine during the day, but with winds anywhere from zero to 30 plus knots and from all directions. The wind is good for some, and we have watched numerous kite surfers having fun off the beach the other side of the harbour, and, one day, saw several tandem skydivers landing on the beach with amazing precision.
So, no sailing news, but we are glad to be back and to find that CC had not suffered in our absence. There is another Tayana 48 just along the dock from us, and the owners, Jim and Jan, have become great friends. We are aiming to have a few weeks travelling around South East Australia, and hope to go and visit them on their farm in Victoria before we fly home next month.

We eventually managed to leave Urangan marina and spend two nights anchored in Hervey Bay, off Fraser Island. There is a fair bit of shallow water to negotiate going across the bottom of the bay, but eventually depth is not an issue and you are free to detour if you happen to see Humpback whales. Except, there was virtually no need to detour as there were so many whales. The whales congregate in Hervey Bay before pushing on south to their feeding grounds off Antarctica. We had been worried that with so many whale watching boats it could be a bit of a circus out on the water, but the boats all seemed to scatter in different directions, and all were watching different whales, which meant that we were usually the only boat watching the ones we came across.

Most of the whales were in twos, mother and calf, but occasionally we would see three or four together, and we soon lost count of the total numbers. The first time we switched the engine off a mother and calf were just slowly swimming past. Soon after that we were sandwiched between two very active groups. To starboard were three which were constantly tail slapping and flipper slapping, and to port a couple who were breaching. Difficult to know which way to turn.

Flipper flapping

Tail slapping 1

Tail slapping 2

The noise and the splashes were quite something, and we could quite see how their activity was a method of communication which would be heard miles away. Even we could hear them around two miles away. We saw lots of active behaviour and, unusually, we also saw whales coming right out of the water when breaching, more like dolphin. Normally the head and upper body will be exposed with the tail still in the water.

Breach 6

Breach 4

Breach 3

How they manage to launch such bulk completely into the air speaks of immense power. At times the babies would ‘spy hop’, checking us out, but they never seemed bothered by an audience and we were usually ignored.

Later we passed very close to a mother and calf who were just resting on the surface, and, in the distance we could see a whale hanging vertically, with its tail well out of the water, for minutes on end.

Tail sail

Our whole trip up to our chosen anchorage towards the top of Fraser Island was one big ‘Whale Fest’, and we felt so lucky and privileged to have been witnesses to so many of these impressive, intelligent creatures.

One of our Hervey Bay anchorages

We anchored on our own just off the beach. It is hard not to anchor off a beach as Fraser Island is the worlds largest sand island stretching over 120km, and has world heritage listing. We had a long walk along the shore and saw Dingo tracks in the sand. We thought we might have seen actual Dingos at dusk or daybreak but they were far more elusive than the whales.

Dingo prints in the sand

The next day, having been up at first light to look for dingos, we were in the cockpit when a mother and calf swam right by the boat. We were only anchored in about 16 ft of water and were surprised they were coming into the shallows. In 2011 a whale became entangled in a boat’s anchor chain and started to tow the boat out to sea before managing to free itself. That would have been some ride! A little later when we had just taken the anchor up two more whales passed close by. This time between us and the shore.

Our second day in Hervey Bay was much like the first, whales in every direction. We saw one whale which had obviously been at the surface for a long time as it had a flock of sea birds resting on its back! We also saw some quite aggressive behaviour by a couple of males who were competing to mate with a female who only seemed to want to get away. We again saw a whale with its tail up for minutes at a time, it was in a similar area to yesterday’s ‘tail whale’ so it may have been the same one. As a finale we watched for twenty minutes or so as a youngster breached time and time again. How they have the energy for such repeated behaviour is a mystery.

You see the babies more than the mums as they need to come to the surface more often to breathe. They look large when on their own, but when Mum comes up beside them you see how truly enormous these, usually, gentle giants are. So, whale watching in Hervey Bay is a true wildlife spectacle, and I would urge anyone in the area, in the right season, to book themselves a, never to be forgotten, whale watching experience.

Apparently when hunting whales was banned in these parts in the mid 1960’s less than 150 humpbacks were counted on the Queensland coast, this year around 23,000 have been counted. What a success story, and just shows what can happen when humans predatory behaviour is stopped. We hope the huge fleets of krill catching ships being developed by the Chinese don’t affect the whales Antarctic feeding grounds, but history would say otherwise, unfortunately.

Another Fraser Island Resident

Back in the Sandy Straits marina we had to put off sailing south yet again as there was more bad weather and, going for a walk along the Urangan pier we were well and truly battered by the wind. Eventually it looked like there might be a sufficiently good weather window to sail (motor) down the great Sandy Straight, spend one night at anchor on the way and then exit at the south of Fraser Island over the Wide Bay Bar.

We anchored at Garry’s anchorage, spotting Dolphin on the way down and an Osprey perched quite close in a tree when we arrived. We had been into Garry’s on the way north and, apart from the crocodile warning, really enjoyed our time there going for long walks and exploring in the dinghy. However, not this time, as the wind built again and we spent all our time on board. When we arrived there were just three boats, but, as it is so well protected, that number rose to 15.

We were still hoping to escape the Sandy Straits the following day, but another system was on its way meaning it would be touch and go whether we got to Mooloolaba in time. Discretion got the better of valour and instead we made for a marina in Tin Can Bay to sit out the next blow. We had to anchor for a while to wait for enough water to get up the creek, and saw a couple of Indo-Pacific Hump Backed Dolphin cruising around the various boats.

Very good little Tin Can Marina

One of the many walks. H is studiously ignoring the facilities!

Ubiquitous Ibis

Our stay at Tin Can Bay (where do they get their names from?) was a good decision as the wind was so strong we ended up having to stay for three nights, however it was no hardship as it is a pleasant, sleepy little fishing town with great walks and cycle rides and lots of other cruisers who were ‘in the same boat’ to chat to and commiserate with. Several of whom we had met or seen before. We were quite anxious to carry on south, however, as time was marching on and so, after 3 nights, and, along with about twenty other boats waiting to leave, we anchored for a night down near the exit to the Sandy Straits in order to leave at first light.

Wide Bay Bar can be quite treacherous, and we had been shown a photo of a 46′ boat which was leaving at the same time as us, on a previous occasion, being launched into the air over a huge wave on the bar. There was just a tiny bit of the keel still in the water, very scary. They thought they had the right conditions, but just got caught out by an unforecast southern ocean swell. You not only have to wait for the right weather and swell, but also the right point of tide. As a rule of thumb never go over bars earlier than 2 hours after low water, and, never on an ebbing tide. We were up at 4.30 and away by 5 to ensure being across the bar before HW at 7.45. We had to allow plenty of time as we were down to 2 knots on occasions with the wind and current against us. Despite the forecast for easterly to northerly winds, we had southerlies! which meant 11 hours of motoring down to Mooloolaba, though the trip was enlivened by many whale, and a couple of dolphin, sightings. We never get tired of seeing cetations and are quite good at spotting them, and their blows, over a considerable distance.

Mooloolaba had been intended as just an overnight anchorage, however, in keeping with our whole trip south, we heard a weather warning for the next day and elected to go into a marina for two nights. On my first stroll up to the marina office I was roundly seen off by two Masked Lapwing, much to the amusement of some onlookers. I had not noticed three tiny little fluff ball chicks that they were protecting.

Masked Lapwing – Mum and chick

Mooloolaba is a popular tourist resort on the Queensland Sunshine Coast, so there was plenty to do and see for our enforced stay, but, what we found the most riveting was watching a 45 to 50 ft yacht coming into the harbour past the breakwater at low tide, with quite a swell. I have to admit I would have bee terrified, and my heart was in my mouth just watching its approach towards waves breaking across the entrance. It was rocking and slewing from side to side and must have been very difficult for the helm to keep it on course. I would rather have stayed at sea than braved that entrance in those conditions. Happily all was well, but I bet they were glad to tie up safely to the dock.

The next day could not have been more different with sunshine, a light breeze and just a little bit of swell in the entrance. All very benign, and we were off before 7 am to motor to Scarborough Marina where CC is to stay while we go home. We saw numerous whales again, had to take avoiding action with some of the large container ships going up and down the channel into Moreton Bay and on to Brisbane, and followed a submarine, which had come to the surface, also heading towards Brisbane.

So, we are now in Scarborough marina preparing CC for being left. We have already been working on her for 4 days and still have plenty more to do before we fly.

Dramatic sunset at Scarborough

Tucked up in Scarborough

Howard and Sue were joining us at Hamilton Island and, with a bad forecast, we decided to book 2 nights in Hamilton marina and allow us all to explore the island. Going into this marina is all very civilised. Once you are off the marina entrance, making sure not to motor too near to the end of the runway, you call up the marina on the radio. They respond with a berth number and instructions as to which side to tie on ropes and fenders and to wait until one of the marina staff comes out in a RIB to escort you in. You follow them to your berth by which time they are out of the RIB and on the dock ready to take your lines. They could not be more helpful, and nothing was too much trouble. If only all marinas were the same, then life would be much smoother with less aggro from him at the back of the boat (aka skipper) trying to get me to break long jump records to get onto the pontoons he hasn’t got near enough to!

Peter went on his bike to meet Howard and Sue at the airport, and then lost them, as their taxi driver dropped other passengers off, took them on an involuntary tour of the island, and then proceeded to pick up a medical emergency and take him to the clinic before, finally, dropping them off at the marina. Sue trained as a nurse earlier in her career, but I’m sure she hadn’t expected to be using her skills on holiday, in a taxi!
Hamilton Island is the largest inhabited island of the Whitsundays, it is used almost exclusively for tourism and is the only island in the Great Barrier Reef with its own commercial airport. It is leased by the Oatley family, who own and run Hamilton Island Enterprises (HIE), which operates the majority of accommodation and businesses on the island. (Bob Oatley, who died earlier this year, was probably best known for owning eight Sydney to Hobart Race winning yachts all called Wild Oats). He also developed most of the Gold Coast it seems – not short of a dollar or two I imagine!
HIE run a shuttle bus service, free to all on the island, and there is a fleet of golf buggies for hire. We made use of the buses on our first night to get to a restaurant on the other side of the island, and then hired a buggy on the second day with the expectation of exploring the island and making use of the numerous pools, beaches, bars etc. However, the weather had other ideas, with torrential rain on and off throughout the day. OUR buggy had a roof, but no sides, so we were soaked on more than one occasion. It was also quite cold, so lounging by the pool or on the beach was out. Not the best introduction to the Whitsundays, but, we had a laugh and, the next morning, once it stopped raining, we were ready to leave the marina and go exploring.
The wind forecast was still not great, so we made for Nara Inlet which has almost all round protection. Happily we had several encounters with whales on the way, and there were dolphin in the anchorage when we arrived. After a trip up to the Ngaro cultural site, Howard and Sue went off to explore in the dinghy, and Peter and I continued building our upper body strength with a paddle in the kayak.

Time to explore

Humpbacls ‘flipper flapping’

The views were breathtaking, and every bit as spectacular as the dozens of photographs we have seen in every marina and tourist brochure. It is definitely the “must see” place in the Whitsundays and lives up to the hype. It was hard to tear ourselves away, but, eventually we made our way down to Lookout Beach, on the edge of Hill Inlet. The white sand was powder soft and, walking to a tidal pool, we could see small sharks and sting rays in the shallows. A wonderful way to end another day.

No Photoshopping!

Iconic view – Whitehaven Beach that is!

Aussie version of tide pool on Lookout beach, complete with sharks and sting rays!

H getting artistic!

One of the locals catching up on a few zzzzz’s

More torrential downpours spoiled the next morning, but, by the time we had anchored off Whitehaven Beach the sun was out again. We could see whales in the distance and, once ashore we were able to wander along part of this glorious, long, white sand beach. Sue and I swam back to the boat and I discovered it is quite tricky swimming with a broken toe. As the beach is a Mecca for tourists we decided to move on somewhere quieter for the rest of the day and night, and put down the anchor off Chalkie’s Beach on Haslewood Island, where we snorkelled on some pretty good coral reefs and wandered the beach looking for shells.

For Howard and Sue’s last night we sailed south in glorious weather to an anchorage off the bottom of Shaw Island. Before putting down the anchor we saw whales breaching and decided to go and investigate. 

Mother and calf in a breaching ‘teach-in’

 It was a mother and calf, and the calf was being very playful, breaching and flipper slapping. It was also rolling around on its mother’s head. 

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Junior at play!

We kept the required distance and switched off the engine, however, the whales had other ideas, and swam straight for the boat. We had our best sighting since being in the Whitsundays, but, so much so that Peter decided he needed to start the engine and move away before the whales started to play with us! Probably not likely but they are huge animals!
The next day it was back up to the Marina on Hamilton Island for Howard and Sue to catch their flight back to Brisbane. We booked in for the night, and spent our time doing laundry, washing down CC and getting a few more supplies. It had been a fun week, but we had to start getting south again. Two hours or so after leaving Hamilton Peter checked his emails to find out his meetings in the UK had been put back, and as we hadn’t booked our flights home we took a few seconds to decide to turn round and spend more time to explore the Whitsundays.
We started off in Blue Pearl Bay on Hayman Island, which is a popular snorkelling/diving spot, with moorings to avoid damaging the coral. We were lucky enough to pick up a newly vacated mooring when we arrived late afternoon, and quickly got our gear on to go snorkelling. At that stage we had not heard about the kayaker who was attacked by a crocodile off Blue Pearl Bay earlier this year! Had we done so the best snorkelling in the world would not have attracted me into the water!!
The forecast for the next day suggested that a trip to the Great Barrier Reef proper, somewhere we were both very keen to go, was on the cards. You need calm weather, as the only protection is from the reef itself, which is obviously covered at high water. It was 18 miles out to Bait Reef, so we set off at first light and were again lucky enough to pick up a mooring. It was high water when we arrived, with quite a sea ‘chop’, but we managed to get the dinghy down and took ourselves off to snorkel in Paradise lagoon. 

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Bait Island – part of the Great Barrier Reef.  On a calm day!

Moored and ready for a bit of snorkelling

 There was plenty to see, with the walls of the lagoon being solid with very live coral of a vast array of different colours. Mostly hard corals, but a few soft corals also. 

Lobster taking cover under a flat coral

Here are some of the vast array of beautiful corals

 There were some huge fish, and we saw a shark just resting on the bottom. We must have been in the water for at least an hour and were really glad we had made the effort. The overnight forecast was not settled, so, when our two hours on the mooring was up we left it to another grateful recipient and made our way back to the islands and a nice sheltered anchorage. We were glad we came back when the wind got up during the night. This year has generally been bad weather-wise in the Whitsundays, and one couple we met said they had spent half their time since May in marinas due to the weather. Luckily our experiences have not been quite as bad as that!
After our foray out to the reef we thought we might go a little further north on the mainland and spent a couple of days in two mainland anchorages in the vicinity of Gloucester island not far from the town of Bowen. However, we then got northerlies, and with no protected anchorages in the area we made our way back out to the Whitsundays and our favourite well protected anchorage of Nara Inlet. 

Nara Inlet

Esk Island – not such a ‘shabby’ lunch anchorage

Just before deflation!

The next island south was Goldsmith, in a bay we decided should be called turtle bay. Not only were there numerous turtles, but, unlike everywhere else we have seen them, these ones were relatively relaxed around boats and stayed at the surface taking multiple breaths even when quite close to us. When the wind dropped we could hear them exhale as they surfaced.
For our final night before reaching Mackay marina we were anchored on the south side of Brampton and had not been there for long before the forecast strong northerlies arrived. There were some nice beaches to explore, but the wind was too strong to consider leaving the boat. Throughout the afternoon and early evening a steady trickle of boats arrived seeking shelter. One, with very high topsides was leaning over away from the wind alarmingly, and another had not managed to furl his fore sails properly and they were making a huge racket flapping madly in the wind. It was some time after dark before all the boats were settled at anchor and we could just worry about our anchor holding and no one elses.
With a bad forecast for the next night we were off to Mackay marina in the morning. On the way we saw a humpback. We had not seen one for about a week, they are thinning out now as they make their way back south to their feeding grounds off Antarctica.
We were in Mackay marina for three nights while we waited for the weather to improve. Enough time to re-provision, do some minor repairs, do laundry and take yet another quick trip up to Eungella National Park to see the Platypus. Our sightings were not as good this time, but we did see a juvenile, about half the size of the adult platypus, and, while waiting for them to appear, saw a large Goana (monitor lizard), about a metre long, stalking a smaller lizard. They were both on a fallen tree which was bridging the river. Happily the terrified small lizard escaped, and we could breathe again.

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The hunter and the hunted!

Our hopes of further island hopping on our way south have so far been dashed due to the wind strengths and directions. There have not been any sheltered anchorages, so, from Mackay we did a 28 hour, 166 mile trip down to Keppel Bay marina, arriving just in time to shelter from yet another bout of bad weather, and the following day we had a brilliant sail in ideal sailing weather the 178 miles to Urangan, in Hervey Bay, where we are now. 

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 On passage to Urangan

While here we have biked for 10 miles along the bay, walked round the marina and onto the breakwater, watching groups of people catching Yabbies (Google it if you’re interested) for bait, and done, the inevitable, maintenance and housekeeping. Hopefully we will be away from here tomorrow to do a bit of exploring around Hervey Bay. The humpback whales congregate in the bay before pushing on south, and the whale watching boats are very busy plying their trade for what is a rather short season. We saw at least 7 whales in the bay before getting to the marina. We also saw a Dugong, a very rare sighting, and dolphin. Hopefully we will have lots more wildlife (other than P needing a haircut) encounters before we get to Brisbane.

We returned to Australia in the second week of August. CC was fine in her marina berth in Mackay, but the weather was not, and it was a week before it calmed down enough to tempt us to continue our journey. In the meantime, as it was the Olympics, and the local sports bar was not showing much of the action (and did not serve coffee) we decided to invest in a small 12v TV so we could indulge in an orgy of British sporting success. (Though buying a small TV was much harder than we anticipated, as most of the stores only seemed to stock screens which would do justice to a home cinema.) As always we were suffering from jet lag, so were often awake in the small hours of the morning to catch the live action.

It was not ‘wall to wall’ olympics, as we obviously had work to do to prepare CC to leave, and as this is Australia then there was a natural focus on events that Aussies were doing well at, such as water polo, beach volley ball (Skipper took an inordinate interest in that!), and our saviour – sailing. But in between we got some real stuff, and subscribing to a VPN network allowed us to bypass the BBC’s ridiculous refusal to make any of their programmes accessible to the rest of the world – someone needs to tell them about VPN. We also walked the couple of kilometres along the sea wall and back most days to check on the sea state, and one day we decided to go back up to Eungella National Park to re-visit the Duck Billed Platypus. On the way we diverted off-road in our hire car and after dirt road and a few fords, we parked and walked up Finch Hatton Gorge, and then spent over an hour by the Broken River and were extremely lucky to be watching between 7 and 10 Platypus in three different locations. They are such strange looking creatures, and the first scientists to examine a specimen believed they were the victims of a hoax. They are also one of only two mammals which lay eggs (the echidna being the other). Despite their strange appearance they really are a delight to watch when ‘going about their daily business’, and we only left the river when it was too dark to see them. 

Eungella Platypus

Our next stop was Roylen Bay on Goldsmith Island, nice anchorage with a great beach and, while out exploring in the dinghy, we stopped to watch three whales who came very close to us. They were mostly swimming at the surface, and doing some flipper slapping so we could follow their progress easily. An adults flipper is huge, probably over 10 ft long, so slapping that around is pretty intimidating if you are very close when in such a small RIB like ours, and, for once we were very thankful that they were not breaching. A couple of dolphin also came over to investigate, and swam right by, so a double treat.

Flipper slapping humpbacks

Mum, baby and A.N. Other

Spectacular Nara Inlet on Hook Island

Obtaining permission to visit the Ngaro Indian site on Nara Inlet

Ngaro primitive cave paintings at Nara Site

More primitive art!

Extraordinary rock formations off our anchorage in Nara.

Kayaking in Nara Inlet

We had a pleasant overnight sail, with a full moon, to Lady Musgrove Island, pleasant but tiring. When our passages are just one two or three nights long we struggle to get enough sleep, by the fourth night our bodies have become accustomed to the strange sleep patterns, and we are so tired that we can sleep at almost any time and we catch up a little on the hours lost. When it is just one night we do well to sleep at all, so by the time we put the anchor down in the lagoon of Lady Musgrove around 8am we were fit for nothing but rest until early afternoon.

Nothing to add really

Robbie and Bev

Mersoleil off to Darwin

Colourful Coral and blue blue sea again!

Birdlife of Lady Musgrave

After three nights we, rather reluctantly, left Lady Musgrove, it was time to move on, especially as there were high winds forecast. We sailed back to the mainland, and hunkered down in Pancake creek along with eight other boats. The anchorage in the creek was only accessible to us about 3 hours either side of HW, but, luckily the tides were such that when we arrived we could go straight in. We anchored behind a sandbank, uncovered at low water, put down plenty of chain and tested the anchor well in reverse.
We did not have much sleep the first night, as the wind was whistling through the rigging, and we were bouncing around when the water came up over the sandbanks. The next day the wind abated a little and, either side of LW we were able to go ashore and walk the 2.5 km up to the lighthouse. We passed the huge, and gorgeous Aircraft beach on the way up, and, once at the top had great views. There is a large grass area by the lighthouse, and, when we arrived there were three kangaroos, one with a joey wriggling in her pouch, grazing. They did not immediately flee, and we were able to take several photos before they bounded off into the surrounding bush.

We left the next day, motoring most of the way as the wind had died to almost nothing. We passed through 16 Bulk carriers anchored off Gladstone and saw dolphin several times, including a family group of three adults and one very small baby, in fact the smallest we have seen. They came and rode our bow wave for several minutes. 

  
 We were making for a lovely anchorage off Hummocky Island, along with a Frenchman, Guy, who we first met in Urangan marina.

Approaching Hummocky Island

Another glorious sunset at Hummocky

Another deserted beach!

Approaching Great Keppell

Spectacular!

Also spectacular!!

Another sunset

Or two!

We came into the marina two days ago. We took advantage of the courtesy car to drive to the supermarket and stock up, and Peter wanted to investigate getting a new mifi unit from a different network, as our Vodaphone network was becoming impossibly slow. I made the most of the laundry facilities, and, yesterday, when it rained for most of the day, we took time out to just catch up with emails, and sit and read in the cockpit, snug and dry under our new canvas covers, and to also revel in our new ‘lightening fast’ Telstra 4G+ network!  
We had planned to leave today, but, we had a problem refilling one of our gas bottles, and the forecast was for thunderstorms, so we decided to stay put, and will leave tomorrow.

We arrived back in Australia on Wednesday 11th May, and, unusually for us, managed to be sorted and away from Scarborough Marina, where we left the boat, on Saturday 14th. Having first managed to get rid of our huge orange Switlick life raft (the volunteer Coast Guard took it for training) and collect our new compact white Oceansafe which fits neatly onto the aft rail. We now have lots more storage on CC thanks to a boat box which Peter fitted in the space left by the old liferaft. Our only other major chore, before we left, was to provision and, that is not quite the onerous task it has been in the past when crossing oceans.
We slipped away from the dock at 7.30am and, with little wind or swell, motored easily out of the marina, up the channel and on to the North West Channel to take us out of Moreton Bay. The wind built sufficiently to allow us to motor sail and by early afternoon we were off Mooloolaba. We had been listening to regular warnings on the radio about shoaling in the entrance to Mooloolaba channel, and had read about the same, so it was a relief to have virtually no swell to enter across yet another bar. We motored past all the marinas and moorings round to the anchorage and were surprised, and delighted, to see our friends Robbie and Bev on Mersoliel already anchored there, we thought they were well ahead of us.
Mooloolaba is a thriving resort town on Australia’s Sunshine Coast. There are hundreds of boats of every description, many canals and waterways with waterside (mostly) holiday homes. Our anchorage was surrounded by large houses, most of which were empty. There was a reasonable amount of room in the anchorage and we were happy when we chose to anchor away from 2 boats anchored and tied together, as we heard they tend to drag around the anchorage when the wind gets up. They also, luckily for us, seemed to be the magnet for the local roosting cormorants, and looked as if they had had whitewash thrown all over the deck! Thankfully kept them off our decks! Mooloolaba also has great beaches, and we went for a long walk on powder soft sand.
After two nights we were ready to make a move again and had to be up and away at first light to make the 60+ nautical miles in daylight to Wide Bay Harbour at the bottom of Fraser Island. (We have less than 12 hours of daylight at present). We sailed and motor sailed up the coast and, again, were thankful of very little swell when going into the ‘harbour’ over the bar. We anchored with several other boats just behind a sand bar (a haven for shore and sea birds) at Inskip Point, not too far from where a small car ferry lands on the beach and takes 4 wheel drive vehicles over to Fraser Island. Even with 4 wheel drive we saw vehicles get stuck in the soft sand.
The next day we decided to explore Inskip Point, and, after two failed attempts to get to the beach in the dinghy over very shallow water (and a falling tide) we eventually made it and walked over the beach and into the ‘forest’ which was alive with birds and birdsong. There are 828 species of Australian native birds (and 27 introduced birds), and they seem to have some of the most colourful and some of the noisiest. They are certainly hard to ignore, even if you wanted to, which we certainly don’t.
Going up through the Great Sandy Strait between Fraser Island and the mainland in a keelboat necessitates ‘working the tides’, as there are some very shallow areas when running aground at low water could mean a very long wait, and at high water could be very embarrassing indeed! First impressions suggest this is a large expanse of sheltered water, but, the channels and areas open for us to navigate were actually relatively small. We set off just after low water to make our way the 13 + miles up to our next anchorage, known as Garry’s anchorage, off Fraser Island. There was a ‘skinny’ bit to navigate towards the end, but we had at least 3ft under us at half tide. Once anchored we took the dinghy down, and, as we were near the shore, Peter rowed us to the beach, where it was a little disconcerting to see crocodile warnings, as well as warnings about Dingos. There are also venomous snakes and poisonous spiders on the Island. We went for a walk and found there are also innumerable birds too, many of which seemed quite curious, and, if we stayed still they would be brave enough to come for a closer look. I guess their lack of fear reflected the remoteness of the area. 

Crocs, Dingos, Spiders…!!!

We walked along a sand track, not much used by vehicles, and discovered a camera trap. We hope not too much excitement for the rangers when they download the images and see the British cruiser, a rare migrant to these shores.
The following day we had to wait to leave until after low water again, so again made our way ashore in the dinghy for another walk. (Swimming not advised as the water is murky, and there are sharks.) All along the tide line were thousands of small blue tinged Soldier crabs. They are so named because the males patrol the beach at low tide in large ‘armies’ walking forwards, not sideways like other crab species. As we approached they retreated up the beach looking just like soldiers, and disappeared down their holes, only to reappear when they decided the coast was clear.

On the march! – Blue Soldier Crabs

We walked south this time, and saw even greater bird numbers, and, on retracing our steps, also saw a 2+ft Goanna, a type of Monitor Lizard. He had been sunning himself on the path, and just shot off part way up the nearest tree from where he kept an eye on us as we looked at him and marvelled at his glorious markings.
After the tide had turned we set off for the shallowest section of the Great Sandy Strait. There were all sorts of warnings on our Navionics charts about boats going aground, and the charts themselves did not always correspond with the depths we found. We discovered, to our cost, that the apparent deepest route on the chart is not always so, and the inevitable happened and we ran aground, however, we were going very slowly at the time, the bottom was soft sand, and Peter soon had us off the bottom and on our way again. The ‘preferred’ route on the chart, which sometimes appeared to takes us into 0.5m of water, was actually the way to go, though occasionally the preferred route on our devices did not correspond so it was a toss up whose we followed. On one occasion there was no argument, as Peter’s iPad said go to starboard where there was a yacht already aground, mine said go to port and over a sandbank. We chose the sandbank and made it! However, after that, and another close shave, we decided to call it a day and anchored near the South White Cliffs. From this point on we would have enough depth not to worry about tides.
Despite some tricky spots, we were really pleased we had chosen to take the inside route. It was very pleasant meandering up the channel looking for wildlife and admiring the scenery. Fraser Island is a great place and one we would like to explore more at a later date. We saw turtles, and more land and sea birds than we could remember, and it was fun to just sail/motor for a few hours each day to our next anchorage.
Our last day going up the Straight took us to the Great Sandy Straight Marina at Urangan. We had thought about trying to navigate our way up the river to Maryborough, but it was a tortuous and hazardous route and we decided that might be a step too far. We needed a marina to re-provision, and decided we could visit Maryborough on the bus.
On our arrival we discovered that the next day was a public holiday in this area, and many shops would be closed. Luckily, the marina has a vehicle for hire at $15 for two hours, so we were able to go to the supermarket and get the shopping done later in the afternoon. We also discovered that the reason for the public holiday was the Fraser Coast Show, held in Maryborough the next day, so we decided we could see the show and the town all in the same day.
A combination of taxis and buses got us to and from the show and the town. The show was a bit like the English country version, with horse showing and show jumping. Cattle showing classes, caged bird showing, best cake, flower arrangement, vegetables, classic cars, pig racing etc. etc., but with the added ‘log chopping’ (now there’s a sport to set the pulses racing, not!) and panning for ‘gold’ and minerals.  There was every type of fast food, tacky souvenirs and a huge funfair as well. After a couple of hours wandering around, and getting collared by some of the ‘experts’ on some of the exhibits (do we have willing listener too polite to run away on our foreheads?), we decided to go into town and see a bit of Australian history.

A chicken – really!

Jag – is there any other car!

Some other old Brit cars

Competitors in the piglet stakes!

One of the ‘toned’ athletes sizing up the task ahead!

Maryborough, on the Mary river, was established in 1847 and, during the second half of the 1800s the city was a major port of entry for immigrants arriving in Queensland from all over the world. In the early 1900’s the city was Queensland’s largest port, a reception centre for wool, meat, timber, sugar and other agricultural products, as well as a major shipbuilding port, with the last shipyard closing in the 1970’s. It is now the self styled Heritage City of Queensland, with many beautifully preserved 19th and 20th century buildings. Its other claim to fame is that P L Travers, author of ‘Mary Poppins’ was born there.  We started off at the muddy brown Mary river, quite thankful we had not made the journey up by boat, wandered through a very peaceful garden and then along the streets admiring the buildings. There are several museums, but all were shut as it was a public holiday. It was a pleasant way to while away a couple of hours, and we were glad to have made the effort to see the city, however, wandering around in the heat took its toll and we were ready to catch the bus back to Hervey Bay.

Mary River Marina – excellent little restaurant!

Another view of the Mary River at Maryborough

Some of the beautiful old Maryborough buildings

We had planned to leave today sailing overnight to Lady Musgrave Island some 92 miles away, however, the forecast went from pleasant sailing winds and little swell, to put the reefs in the sail and bounce around, so we decided to stay put for another day and see whether the reduction in wind and swell now forecast for tomorrow materialises. If so we will be off again, continuing our route north.
With our extra stopover day we took the bikes off and rode to a market, where Peter had to keep dragging me from stalls selling ‘must have’ gorgeous kiddies clothes, which would have been ideal for granddaughters – had I been given the chance! From here we could walk the Urangan Pier. Built in 1917 it was originally 1,100 metres long, but, following decommissioning in 1985 public uproar over demolition saw 880 metres saved for the community. It is now something of a tourist attraction, and much used by anglers. We carried on round the esplanade to the village of Torquay, who would have thought it, from Scarborough via the east coast of Australia to Torquay in a week! 

We returned to CC after our time in New Zealand hoping, rather than expecting, that all the work would be finished and all we had to do was provision and wait for the weather. Of course that was not the case and we still had no lifelines or a repaired staysail on board, and CC needed to be hauled to have the bottom cleaned and anti fouled, and some polishing done. However, we were thrilled with our new, non leaking canvas covers and, oh so impractical, but gorgeous, pale suede upholstery. Not to mention our glossy, re-varnished cap rail.

CC was due to be hauled on the Monday but it was too wet. Tuesday proved to be too windy, so it was the Wednesday before Easter before we were hauled. As boats can only be hauled and launched at high water and with the bank holidays, it meant we would only get back in the water on the Tuesday, 6 days later, rather than the 2 days we originally expected.
All this time we had been staying in AirBnB’s, as we could not stay on the boat. Our second one was near to one of the Pacific beaches, which was great for walking, and I also availed myself of one of the man made rock swimming pools (no looking over the shoulder to see if a fin is following you!). However, we had to be out of there on Good Friday as there was another booking, so Peter started looking round for an alternative. It seems as if every Australian who does not already live near a beach wants to stay near one on holiday weekends, so we soon decided that it would be better to look inland for accommodation over Easter.
We decided on the Southern Highlands, about half way between Sydney and Canberra, and booked to stay on a farm near the town of Bowral. We arrived mid afternoon and were ready for a leg stretch. Our hostess, Glenys told us about a walk from the farm which would take about an hour. Perfect, and it turned out to be so much more than we had imagined with fantastic far reaching views when we got to the end of the track. We did another walk the next day from the farm and the views were even more spectacular, and so unexpected. A bit like walking through a forest and suddenly coming out into the sunshine and seeing something like the Grand Canyon.  
Wow!

Our whole time in the southern highlands was a revelation, and we were so pleased we chose to go there. It seemed to have a bit of everything, hills, gorges, rolling pastureland, rivers and waterfalls. There were tourist towns with cafes and high end shopping, and rural towns where “g’day mate” was a constant refrain. The land was mostly either for raising beef cattle, alpacas or grapes, and the wineries ranged from small and family run, to huge industrial concerns.  
  

Alpacas are one of the animals farmed here.

We visited both for wine tasting, and had an excellent dinner in one of the small winery restaurants. Many of the farms have been bought by ‘money’ from Sydney, and the houses sprawl across the landscape announcing the wealth of their occupants. 
There was plenty of wildlife, and we saw our first wild kangaroos, a herd of around 70 grazing on the farm we were staying on.  

Our first ‘roos’

We also saw wombats, but unfortunately only ones spread out on the tarmac with tyre marks! They are nocturnal, so difficult to see, unless obviously in headlights! We also saw the farm’s resident possum, possibly just a little close for comfort, as he was in the roof of the house, and we saw him through a hole in the ceiling while having dinner!! (The hole was there as, following a recent very violent hailstorm when an upstairs window had been smashed, it had then rained in and brought the ceiling down)
We visited Burrawang Easter Market, something of an institution, where the whole village is cordoned off with hundreds of market stalls lining the streets. People come from as far away as Sydney just to go to the market and it was heaving, not usually our thing, but the stalls were interesting and we spent a couple of hours just browsing.
Easter Sunday we decided to go and visit the Wombyan caves. We were staying on Wombyan Cave Road, but, 50yds after the farm gate the tarmac ended and from there on it was gravel road. It was only 44km and, having negotiated many gravel roads in New Zealand we were not expecting anything too bad. How wrong we were. It was the worst gravel road we have ever travelled on, amazing views, but treacherous, with yawning drop offs alongside, and idiots in 4 wheel drives coming the other way, who seemed to take every blind bend on the wrong side of the road.  

 One that didn’t make the corner!

 Our little hire car was not impressed, and, on the way home we did a detour of about 150km to avoid that stretch of road. Still, the caves were spectacular, and apart from a ‘bit of a wobbly with my claustrophobia’ when I saw the size of the entrance, most of the time I was too impressed by the incredible rock formations and cathedral like dimensions to be worried. Almost meeting
   

Amazing ‘curtain’ stalactites 

 
Braving claustrophobia!

So, a great Easter weekend, but Tuesday saw us driving back to Cronulla to be on board CC when she was relaunched at midday. It was good to be back and ‘take possession’ again, and most of the rest of the day was spent cleaning and sorting so that we were able to sleep in our cabin once again. We did take the evening off to have dinner with American friends, Robbie and Bev from Mersoleil who we first met in Vanuatu, and who we last saw in Pittwater. They had arrived back from Tasmania over the weekend.
We had more work to do over the next couple of days, and Friday saw us out with the engineer for engine trials, and all was fine. There was a weather window Saturday, and, having said our goodbyes, we were away mid morning. We had no fixed idea where we were going to next, we just wanted to head north and see what the weather did and how we felt. We had lots of options, but did not know how fast we would be able to go, as we would be fighting the strong East Australian Current nearly all the way up to Brisbane.
In the end we went as far as Yamba for our first hop, arriving late afternoon on the Monday. There is a bar to cross going into the estuary, and, as with all the bars, you only enter at certain states of the tide, usually at least 2 hrs after low water on a rising tide.  

 The entrance to Yamba – bar can be seen breaking here on a calm day!

 We got the tide times right, however, it was still a little hairy getting in, and we were rolling about for quite some way until we reached flat water. Yamba was a nice place, apparently voted Australia’s best town, and we enjoyed staying for a few days in the marina, exploring the area and resting after our 3 day passage. We had wanted to go up the river in the dinghy, however, the engine decided to play up, probably due to the fuel being left in the sun, so we had to give up on that. Peter stripped down the engine few days later and sorted the problem. We had a very friendly, helpful neighbour, Mike, in the marina, and, it turned out that on the other side of him was Alan Lucas who is a well know writer of Australian cruising guides.
By Thursday we were ready to be off again, and we went out early just before high water with just a gentle swell. It was a great day, we were able to sail, and we had dolphin for company. We had hoped to just have a day sail and put in to Ballina and anchor. We arrived off the entrance about 2.5 hrs after LW, but it did not look too inviting, with breaking waves either side of the entrance and what seemed to us across it as well.  

The entrance bar at Ballina!

We radioed the local coast guard, known in Australia as Marine Rescue to ask their opinion about coming in, but they were rather non committal. We hung around waiting for the tide to rise a bit more, a little undecided, but then started a run in until we saw a wave break right across the entrance just in front of us. That decided us, a quick about turn out at sea and setting a course to carry on north.
The wind died overnight, and we motored on up the coast past Cape Byron, where the current against us ran at about 3.5 knots. As it got light we found we had to weave our way amongst dozens of small fishing boats, possibly taking part in a competition, and then it was time to head through another entrance towards Southport, at the northern end of the Gold Coast. We had done this one in reverse last November, and given the conditions, it held no terrors for us. Once inside we turned right along the start of what is known as The Broadwater, a pleasant inside passage inside Stradbrook Island, and after a couple of miles put down the anchor behind a nice sandy beach and had a sleep.
We decided to do this “inside passage” again, as we had done going south, as it saves about 50 miles, and we were away in good time the next morning to get the current with us up through the islands. We also wanted to be sure of navigating some of the shallow areas as near to high water as we could. At times in the channel we just had 2 feet under the keel, at low water we would have been aground. We also had to negotiate the overhead cable, whose clearance is given as 66ft. Our mast is 70ft, but there was enough water for us to motor near to the pylons where the cable was much higher. Once through the channel we anchored off Reef Island in Moreton Bay for the night, where we were visited by turtles and dolphin, and the next day made our way to Scarborough marina where we are leaving CC to fly home.  Sunset from our anchorage off Reef Island

We have had a week in the marina now. Some of the time has been spent working in CC, but we have also visited family and been into Brisbane for some culture, walking around some of the excellent galleries and museums. We have walked and cycled some of the great paths around the coast, sampled the local seafood, and today we went to yet another market, his time in Redcliffe which we discovered was the original home of the Bee Gees. A short pedestrianised lane has been dedicated to their memory, with full sized bronze statues and a photographic history of their lives.
As it is getting towards winter we are glad to be back up in Queensland, and look forward to going even further north when we return in May.