Cape York Peninsula - Days 7 to 11

Continuing in my mock Captain Cook style:

Day 7: Left note at Chili Beach for Paul & Emily to say we were continuing North via Overland Telegraph Track.  Visited Lockhart River Aboriginal Community.  Interesting sight, reminded us of a South African ghetto (not that I have seen one).  Church door had been smashed through with stone.  Visited fascinating airstrip used by USAF Liberator heavy bombers from 1942 onwards.  Surroundings looked very un-Australian and more like how I imagine Kokoda to be. Apparently USAF aircrew stationed there in WWII called it worst airfield they were ever stationed at.  Dust, rain/low cloud, mud caused at least two accidents resulting in fatalities.  One aircraft and all crew vanished without a trace.  Had to hide booze in bushes as Aboriginal communities do not allow you to take any in.  Heavy fines apply.  Turned right off Lockhart River Road onto Frenchmans Road.  Not really a road.  Narrow, overgrown and could not see over heath on both sides.  Arrived at Pascoe River crossing. 

Not knowing much about this particular river descended steep muddy entrance to find two trail bikers cooling off on far side of river.  Short crossing of 10-15 metres wide, but river deep and running quite fast.  Large rocks and potholes throughout crossing.  Arfter reconnaissance by both me and navigator Em,

I returned to the car and started the crossing....water very deep, splashing up over bonnet and half way up doors. 

Made it through, didn't feel too bad.  Next the exit; very steep with large rocks and muddy too.  10 metre ascent up steep angle.  Car slipped a little and steering wheel jumped out of my hands.  Recovered it and Traction Control kicked in to assist ascent. 

Made it to top.  Hands shaking. 

Stayed overnight at Bramwell Junction.  Nice camp spot on the main road through the Cape (two cars went past at 7am and that was it).  Fuel $2.38 per litre.

Day 8:

1st half of OTL.  Overland Telegraph Line Track was once the only road to the Tip.  For some it is considered the adventure of getting to the Tip.  It was created and maintained for the telegraph company to keep communications open with the communities and across to Asia.  It has been replaced by microwave links and also a bypass road now.  Bypass road is badly corrugated, longer than the OTL, but still quicker.  OTL is most definitely 4wd only track with many creek crossings.  It is what I would call a technical 4wd track, as one needs to be able to cross rivers/creeks so a snorkel is a must, some of the crossings are deep with fast moving water and potholes.  Also some have muddy or sandy entrance/exits.  Departed Bramwell Junction and commenced OTL on our own.  The first creek "Palm Creek" was a small steep muddy entrance where I had to move a log to drive down into the creek.....from there it was a whole heap of fun with many more creek crossings to be done (perhaps I will make an album just of the creek crossings with some movies footage):

The road varied a lot, was sometimes corrugated, sometimes overhanging foliage, sometimes rutted, sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes very angled:

Fruit Bat Falls is a delightful swimming hole and a well deserved break. 

Camped at Eliot/Twin Falls/Indian Heads, once a war gathering place of the local Aboriginals.  Now pleasant camping and swimming spot.

Day 9:

2nd half of OTL.  Turned off before last few creek crossings, especially Nolan Brook as had heard Nolan's was more than waist deep and didn't want to risk everything just to prove that the car could do it - already we knew the car was very capable as Pascoe River deemed hardest river crossing we saw/did in Cape York due to depth, steep slippery entry/exit and large rocks/deep holes in crossing.  Very happy to have done what we did.  Took Jardine River ferry across instead.  Bamaga Road to the Tip very badly corrugated in places.  Ultimate destination.  Huge sense of achievement upon reaching the Tip.  Walked there via Frangipani Beach at low tide.  Everyone has a shot like this, here is ours.  We were really very pleased with ourselves to have made it to the most Northern point of mainland of Australia:

Drank a beer on the beach. 

Fantastic views. 

Stayed at Punsand Bay campground.  Spent the evening with Seaford/Cairns fellow campers (met previously at Coen).

 

Day 10:

Stayed another night at Punsand Bay.  Beautiful spot.  Spent all day watching a green turtle feed off a patch of seaweed about 20 metres in front of us.  Both got sunburnt, stupidly.  Spent evening with fellow Land Rover Discovery driver Paddy and partner Amalia.  Good conversations about all niggly things gone wrong on Disco's so far (rear door lock mechanism seized up, water entered and soaked rear seat carpets, etc. etc.).  I exchanged Land Rover servicing CD for cooked meal, very nice carbonara it was too.

Day 11:

Woke at 6am to watch sunset over the tip from our tent on the beachfront. 

Visited Somerset Beach (previous residence of Frank Jardine). 

Graves of the pioneer Frank Jardine, his Samoan Princess wife and other unknowns/random Chinese pearl divers!  Visited a DC3 plane wreck.  Bought an ice cream at Seisia.  Stayed overnight on North side of Jardine River after beginning journey South again.  Beautiful spot overlooking river crossing before car ferry began operations.  Tried to catch a barramundi to no avail.  No crocs in sight.

Cape York Peninsula - Days 1 to 6

Never a dull moment Em just said to me.  After she came across a large feral pig snuffling around near our beachside campsite at Chili Beach in Ironbark Range National Park...And that is exactly what Cape York has been like so far.  I have a lot of stuff in my head to remember to put down on the blog, so me & Em were scribbling stuff in a notepad at one stage so we wouldn't forget!

To set the geographic scene of Cape York it is about the size of the state of Victoria, or England, and is divided up into National Park, Aboriginal lands and reserves and other reource reserves, e.g. mining lease land.  It is a wet tropics area, meaning the wet season is very wet, flooding, cyclones, etc.  And the dry season very dry, e.g. fires, dust, etc.  It has a population of about 18,000 as I understand.  This population is all but cut off from the rest of Queensland in the wet season.  Beer and fuel (and other important supplies) are shipped to the coastal communities via barge from Cairns.  The roads are rough, dangerous in places, a 4wd is a necessity not a luxury.  Saltwater and freshwater crocs, all sorts of snakes including the deadliest on the planet - taipan and king brown - many nasty insects, abundant birdlife and a wicked heat all year round....it has been identified by some conservation societies as being as important and unique on the Earth - in terms of wet tropic wilderness - as the Serengeti or the Amazon.  I personally had never heard of it before coming to Australia, but since being here I have read and seen a lot about it, and below are mine and Em's experiences up at "The Cape".

I have been wondering how to differ the style of the blog in terms of not reading "We did this" or "We saw this", and hopefully my day to day stuff was a bit different.  Now I might try writing in a formal, military style, hopefully similar to one used by Captain Cook i.e.  "Began drive to Cape York with stop at Cooktown.  Obtained fuel and supplies.  Cooktown small, but well stocked.  Captain Cook museum very interesting.  Saw Aboriginal communities, no alcohol allowed in vehicle if stopping", etc. etc.  I think it might work as I have a lot to say and dont want to drone on, but we'll see how it goes and if I tail off into normal speak please forgive me, but I am not trained in this art (but do have too much time to think when driving on long dirt roads):

Day 1: Began drive to Cape York with stop at Cooktown.  Narrowly avoided running over snake outside of town.  Obtained fuel and supplies.  Cooktown small, but well stocked.  Captain Cook museum very interesting.  Saw Aboriginal communities on way, no alcohol allowed in vehicle if stopping or heavy fines apply.  Little Lighthouse gave splendid views of town, Mount Cook and surrounding area. 

Departed Cooktown Wednesday afternoon via Battle Camp Road.  Scene of one of few pitched battles between Aboriginal warriors and white settlers.  Now cattle station and 4wd track.  Entered Lakefield National Park.  Landscape appears quite alien with Brahmen cattle and termite mounds everywhere. 

This one has phallic properties, I think you will agree:

 

Made Camp at Lake Emma, much to Emma's delight as one can imagine.  Two cyclists camping nearby - unusual sight up here.  Had fire.  Drank some rum.  Full moon.  Tent windows open.  Fell asleep watching many glow bugs in tree above our heads.

Day 2: Continued through National Park via Battle Camp Road.  Stopped to view Old Laura Homestead restored ruins, very interesting. 

Passed cyclists, stopped to chat as we were in awe the hard conditions they were riding in (with Land Rover aircon pumping out at chilly 16 degrees in 32 degree day).  Visited Laura (new one) with 2 fuel and stores an airstrip and thats about it, and New Laura ranger station.  Witnessed smoldering bush fires on roadside, dead cow - had exploded after bloating in the heat and smelt...bad.  Visited Split Rock Aboriginal rock art, first we have seen and spectacular too, some figures over 2 metres tall.  Colour a little faded, yet still clear. 

Obtained fuel and water from Laura roadhouse and continued North.

Next stop 6 Mile Waterhole.  First waterhole seen, very impressed, similar to African waterholes as seen on Attenborough's shows, without lions, but with crocs (none seen, yet).  "Magnificent birdlife" (quoted as this is Em's quote, not mine!). 

Witnessed feral pig's decapitated head placed on pole at next waterhole, probably the work of local Queenslanders. 

Some small creek crossings on way through National Park.  Most puzzling working out QPWS reservation system for campsites; write your name on whiteboard, then drive for 1 hour to campsite to find someone (who has not written name on whiteboard) is in pitch.  Good job we didnt pay first.  Kalpowar Crossing campsite busy, but pleasant enough.  Cold shower at end of hot (33), dusty day.  Drank some rum.  Went to bed.

Day 3: Early start.  Crossed Causeway - recent 5 metre croc sighting signs observed.  Took 4wd track to Bathurst Heads between Cape Melville and Lakefield NP's.  One log bridge crossing.

 

Very interesting drive through typical Cape country - anthills, woodlands, saline mud flats.  Made it to end where rivers and creeks spill out to wide waters of Princess Charlotte Bay.  Gypsy looking campsites at end of road.  Local traffic with dirty, sweaty, lean, rough looking chaps in utes with angry dogs drooling and barking aggressively at us as they pass.  Took a spot of lunch at a bush camp site by side of Normanby River.  Within 10 minutes saw croc swimming upstream (so definitely was not a log) about 50 feet from us.  Quite scared.  Debated benefits of camping there.  Decided to stay, but camp well back from river.  Walked out the required 50 metres which apparently crocs abide by not to attack humans.  Whilst about to make camp witnessed one said local ute vehicle drive past, pull up for short period and then drive away.  At first considered non-suspicious, however following "whoosh" sound and witnessing 3 metre high flames about 500 metres from us, again debated benefits of making camp there.  Hastily decided "let's get the hell out of here, quick!" packed belongings and drove carefully through many small and some larger bush fires - I suspect some started deliberately.  Luckily wind was carrying them away from road, otherwise we may have been stuck.  Not a funny thought I guarantee you.  Local Queenslanders out for a bit of a laugh peut-etre?  Bored pyromaniac idiots.

Returned to relative safety of Lakefield NP.....Attempted to report deliberately lit fires to Ranger, unable to find them at base.  Made camp well South of fires.  However endured terrifying night due to thoughts of fire encroaching on us and crocs in nearby rivers.  Almost stood on snake when walking to car in dark.  Screamed and danced like a girl, snake crawled away.  Identified as "Keelback" or freshwater snake - eats frogs and lives near rivers and woodlands.  Non-venomous.  Very long, hot day and night today.  Drank some rum.  Went to bed.  Suffered with lack of sleep due to frogs throwing themselves at tent and generally scared of everything.

Day 4: Next day packed up camp, onwards to Red Lily Lagoon (as opposed to White Lily Lagoon just down road).  Very pleasant lookout.  When returning to car, found ourselves to be trapped by another snake.  This snake longer, yellow underbody, black head and upper body.  Said snake would not leave us alon even after I bashed around with a flip flop (I was not wearing any shoes cleverly) and screamed at it to go away.  Eventually snake appeared bored and departed.  Identified to be Common Tree Snake.  Non-venomous.  Scary, but funny experience.  In some ways glad nobody else was around, but in others wish they were there to help. 

Caught a small Mangrove Jack (fish), too small to keep so threw him back.  Apparently >35cm are highly sought after eating fish.  Made camp at Hann Crossing, very pleasant outlook over river.  Saw Paul & Emily after their own adventure to Cape Melville NP.  Swapped stories.  Drank some rum. Went to bed.

Day 5: Left Lakefield park via interesting, but desolate and dry looking Nifold Plains, scenery constantly changing.  Ant hills abundant.  Bulldust patches on road.

Hot shower ($3) at Musgrave Roadhouse.  Drove long drive to Port Stewart, not much to report.  Aboriginal fishing community, camp sites and boat launch ramp.  Feral dogs running around wild in a pack on road.  Drove onto Coen.  Obtained fuel ($2.10 per litre - most expensive yet), onions, apples and potatoes.  Coen %80 Aboriginal/Islander ethnicity.  Appeared poor.  Has two fuel stations (2 bowsers each) a pub and two general stores.  Considered capital of the Cape.  Can't understand why.  Camped at very peaceful spot "the Bend" North of Coen.  Met pleasant family - John, Vaughan and Sheryl - from Melbourne.  John was a bricklayer at a factory two buildings down from Philip Morris in Moorabbin.  Small world.  Had fire.  Drank some rum and wine.  Went to bed.

Day 6: Drove to Archer River Roadhouse.  Obtained bread and milk ($9).  Run by Brits.  Took very long road to Chili Beach.  Made camp on windy, rubbishy (supposedly tides wash rubbish from Indonesia/PNG to beaches at this time of year) Chili Beach in Ironbark NP.

Car by this stage very dirty with red clay like mud: 

Day to Day Stuff

Me & Em thought we would publish a different blog post about our day to day life, rather than "we went here, then here..." or "we saw this and that..." etc.  This is for our memories and also as we thought it might be interesting for anyone reading that might like to know about 24 hours in the life of campers on the road....

I'll start by painting a picture of the roads we travel to get from one place to another - this is just for the North Queensland area that we are now in as it is so big it feels like we have been in this type of terrain for weeks! 

Sugar cane is everywhere.  Banana plantations are next in number probably. 

The mountain range in the distance follows the coast all the way, and has been following us since we set out over the Snowy's in fact:

Queenslander's fruit stalls are always present on the roadside, with this type of thing:

This is great as we get to eat fresh fruit nearly every day, which is more often than not organic and never been in a truck or to a supermarket - we are getting sick of fresh avocados believe it or not (not really, they are the best thing with some salt on or in a sandwich!)

When we stop for little walks to visit lookouts, creeks or waterfalls, we get to see stuff like this:

I get Em to chop the wood if we are allowed to get a fire going (most National Parks allow it):

And on the more serious front we go to the supermarket every 3-4 days to stock up our 50 litre fridge in the back of the car - this keeps us going with meat and veg.  We get milk and bread more often, whenever we need it.  We have cereal for brekkie most mornings as toast is a pain if we dont have the LPG gas stove out and ready.  Lunch is normally freshly made (by Em) cheese/ham/avocado/tomato/lettuce sandwiches at a roadside rest area or somewhere nice like a park in a little town or settlement somewhere we happen to be.  Dinner ranges from spag bol, curry, dhal, steak, rissoles, sausages, fried rice, roo steak (mmm), sweet potato and greens to beans on toast or tinned chilli and rice some nights when we can't be bothered to cook meat and two veg type meals.  Tea and coffee is a must in the morning and everything has its dual usage, here our well used billy (saucepan) and kettle are getting used for dinner over an open fire with grate (Queensland's National Parks are pretty well kitted out like this):

Setting up camp is getting easier - the tent pops up in about 3-4 mins, and we can pack up entirely in about 10-15 mins if we get a rush on like the ranger is coming to get fees (!) or we have noisy neighbours.  

 

 

 

 

 

Everything has its place in the car now so it can be packed quite efficiently, then we shower after packing (as we get muddy + sweaty!).  Showers in caravan parks are generally good, National Parks tend to be more basic, I've had cold showers which take your breath away even when its 26 degrees in the afternoon!

The NP toilets are a bit better in Qld too, not so many drop toilets and more real flushing loos!

Lighting is much better now we have a new 12volt light hung up with some string between trees or the car/tent you can have light almost anywhere you want it - and it sticks up with velcro inside the tent for a bedroom/reading light too.

We have a rollout self inflating queen mattress in the tent which takes up a lot of room in the car, but is pretty darn comfy when it's inflated.  Colder nights we have put emergency foil under it, then duvet and two blankets on top of that!  But up here in FNQ we are just using a duvet.  Soon I think it might be down to just the duvet cover as its staying quite warm at night.

Some evenings we cook in camp kitchens with a bunch of other travellers at caravan parks or NPs.  Other times we are more unsociable and hide away by our tent.  The people we are meeting are generally really nice, mostly though they are 50+ so we are the exception.  When we do meet people our age its always a good laugh.  I've only bumped into two people twice - one was after we camped near to a family on Fraser Island we saw the chap Darryl again in a camping store just North on the mainland, and today an old chap who I was chatting too about the Land Rover Discovery, as he had just bought one, we bumped into again today in Cairns at our caravan park, it was 600kms south of here that we saw him so quite a coincidence...

Nature normally shows us what time is bedtime, i.e. when it gets dark we are normally cooking or about to cook, then bedtime is pretty soon after we have washed up!  We tend to wake during the night to weird animal or bird noises, and normally as soon as it gets light - most of all as the kookaburras and other birds are always so noisy at first light.

We have spent many, many evenings looking at how brilliant the moon and the stars are.  More often than not we get to see the Milky Way cluster of stars as a broad band across the sky - I think it's the Milky Way anyway and the predominant Southern Cross constellation.  A few shooting stars if we are lucky.  And the moon is so clear you can make out individual craters without binoculars, when you are away from town lights and on a clear light.  With binoculars it's an awesome sight - it reminds me of the Death Star!

So there is a little insight to our daily and nightly lives, and a little reminder for us when we get back into 9-5 jobs, one day!

From Cairns to the beginning of the Cape York Peninsula

Cape York is somewhere I seriously never thought I would be writing a blog entry from about 3 years ago.  In fact I don't even think I had heard of it!  I had certainly heard of Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory and knew what an amazing place it must be, cut off in the wet season and with such abundant bird and animal life.  But Cape York, as I have since found out from reading so much about it in 4wd magazines and talking to people here in Australia, is equally as beautiful, varied, remote and considered (only just by now I would have thought) to be Australia's last remaining wild and frontier-like place.

I'll rewind 2 weeks first; me and Em had been to Cairns before (flying there from Alice Springs after the Subaru breakdown incident on the Oodnadatta Track in June last year) so knew what to expect.  We approached it from the North via Mareeba - a dusty rodeo ****hole of a town with the most unpleasant and aggressive caravan park owner who threatened me & Em for driving onto his "Private Property" and for speeding through his campsite...."duh - its a campsite you pratt, we drive in for a look before we set up in case lunatics like you own the place!  And we werent going faster than walking pace so wouldnt run down any of your inbred children anyway!"  These things spring to mind as you are driving away rather than when he is leaning in through the window though.  So, a very unpleasant experience that we will remember forever I am sure. 

Also on the way in is Kuranda, a touristy little town up in the rainforesty-mountain area outside of Cairns, a bit of a hippy feel to it, but more commercial than Nimbin (and no Moomins Mum!) where we also had been before and bought locally made honey from the Honey Shop.  I bought some more, avocado flavour this time....delicious.  We got to know Cairns itself a bit better, and quite like it.  But it's quite small and there probably aren't many IT job opportunities there for either of us, maybe in 10 years time.  A visit to the QPWS office was rewarding as we came away with some local info and a great pack with everything we needed to know inside, including a little coloured booklet to identify all the animals we would come across - this was to come in very handy, especially for snakes.

We bought some stuff for the Cape York trip - extra water containers, we now carry 42 litres exactly.  We bought two new soft eskys (cool bags for us Brits) to carry the additional food we needed.  Em skilfully covered all the rear windows of the boot with sunshade foil to help keep the fridge and food stuff a bit cooler in the hot days up North.

Then we went food shopping.....basically there is very little in the way of shops in the Cape, and what there is is around 3-4 times as expensive!  So we decided to shop for 1 month and fit it all in the car.  This included tins of every sort.  Wraps (they keep forever unopened), chocolate, UHT milk, pasta, etc. etc.  However, the most exciting part was getting the meat which we can keep in our portable 12V fridge.....Paul & Emily found a butcher who was helpful and could "cryovac" the meat for us.  This is basically vacuum packing it and taking out the oxygen to keep it fresh for longer.  He also froze it for us so it should keep for weeks in our fridge now, we got 8 lamb steaks, 4 beef rump steaks, 8 sausages and 2x 500g beef mince and it fits in the fridge absolutely perfect - all for $75 (about 35 quid)!!!  Exciting huh?

When we were all set for supplies we agreed to meet the others in Cooktown in a few days, me & Em visited Mossman Gorge, as we didn't do it last time we here, stopped in at Port Douglas to collect our post and some wheel nuts for the car (to replace the crap locking wheel nuts), then drove through Daintree National Park - which was raining, just like it was last time we saw it! - got the ferry over the Daintree River, then came across a fast flowing creek where all the day trippers from Cairns in their hire cars were turning around as they couldn't make it through the water!  We felt rather superior in our Land Rover driving past them and cruising through the creek with no problem!  The water was flowing fast and was a good half a metre deep because of the rain, but this was the first of many, even on this stretch of tarmac'd road!

As we came out of Daintree NP the road turns into a muddy, steep track called the Bloomfield Track.  This is about 150kms North through to Cooktown.  It had been raining for about 2 days when we did it, so was treacherous in places, a lot of 1st and 2nd gear for both up and down hills.  And some creek crossings again because of the rain.  All went ok though and we had our first night camping on the Cape York Peninsula proper at a place called the Lions Den Hotel in Helenvale....

Duckus-Billus Platypus

We have travelled quite a bit further North from the Whitsundays now (all the area North of there was very tranquil beaches and some nice little camp spots, I dont mean to brush over it, as it was nice, just lots of the same!) and are now travelling in an area called the Cassowary Coast which is basically between Townsville and Cairns - quite a long distance in itself - and weaving in and out of coastal and tablelands (Atherton Tablelands in fact) behind the mountain range (Great Dividing Range) which follows the entire coast of the continent.  The vegetation up here is lush, green and tropical; ferns, palms, eucalypts, some pines, then green pastures over the mountains away from the coast where all sorts of tropical fruits and hundreds of thousands of acres of sugar cane are grown and there are plenty of cows too. 

This is a working dairy we visited on the way through, useful stuff to see for when me & Em own our own cattle station in outback Queensland:

Explorer Christie Palmerston carved a path through the mountains from the coast with his trusty Aboriginal friend Pompo in 1882:

We followed a similar route to them (except it took us a few hours rather than two weeks) and in one day we saw the following....

Freshwater turtles in Mungali Creek just off the Palmerston Highway on a "Waterfall Circuit":

Brolgas (a type of crane) in a harvested sugar cane field on the Atherton Tablelands:

A fat little quail thing that I haven't identified yet!

And last, but not least, a Duck-billed Platypus in a beautiful waterfall on the way to Milla Milla called Elinjaa Falls:

These are pretty hard to spot as they are about the size of a rat (I always thought they were much bigger!), they look like a wet log, and they move really quick!  I spotted this one and it's the first one me & Em have ever seen in the wild, so we were well chuffed.  We were at this waterfall all on our own and he dived and came up twice, then disappeared from view.  A real treat to see.

One of many waterfalls:

Then in the evening we set up camp in a beautiful, but slightly chilly, spot at Lake Tinaroo:

Where we saw a feral pig snuffling along the shore line of the lake!

We were treated to a really quiet night, apart from the blood curdling call of the bush curlew and also wild dogs howling and barking at sunset!  All in all a really good few days getting here, and we are looking forward to getting to Cairns and re-grouping ready for our attack on "The Cape".

Whitsunday Magic Onboard the "Alexander Stewart"

The Whitsunday Islands was a place that Aussies in Melbourne told me about and I hadn't really thought much about them since, but now I'm here, I think I could retire here with a luxury yacht at my beck and call!  The island group is called the Whitsundays, and are the most well known and largest in the area I believe.  Whitsunday Island, Hook, Hayman, Daydream, then the Molle Islands (North, South, East and Mid) and some other smaller ones make up the group.  Captain Cook sailed through in 1770 and named only one small island - Pentecost - and also got the date wrong or something like that, it wasn't actually Whitsunday, so they should be called Monday Islands, so the story goes anyhow....

The local, indigenous Australians were called Jnaru, and didn't much like the original white settlers here, so there are stories of ships being burnt and people murdered, etc. but also many thousands of years history including rock art on the islands before the white settlers arrived of course.  There are no aboriginals left on the islands these days, only 6 star resorts! 

The islands are "continental islands" meaning they were once part of the mainland, but were cut off during ice ages by melted polar ice cap water which entered the area and flooded the rivers and valleys, causing only the mountain tops to stick out.  Also interestingly the Great Barrier Reef guards this area (in fact it shelters the East of Australia from the Capricorn Coast right up to half way out in the ocean towards Papua New Guinea) so each of these continental islands has some amazing treasure, in terms of marine life, living around the edge of it.  Coral is a living organism and is considered an animal not a plant, and the islands just teem with life on the coral reef that surrounds them.  The beaches are entirely made up of dead/broken bits of coral like this below, it tickles like mad walking on it!

Anyroads, after much debate and almost driving out of the area without seeing it, we decided to book on a tall ship sailing cruise on the Alexander Stewart.  It was an "eco-friendly" cruise of 2 nights/3 days (the nights were on board).  The three crew; Geoff the Skipper, Andy the Deckhand and Zam the Hostess, were really good at looking after us, and it was a really nice bit of luxury after camping - just to have someone else cook and wash up for you!

Anyway this boat:

It was handbuilt by three generations of one family and took 17 years to build (I read the construction notes onboard!).  It is considered the largest cold-moulded hull in the Southern Hemisphere, and is designed after a famous ship that the first person ever sailed solo around the world in (Joseph Slocum).  It was also designed to go to the Antarctic if ever required.  It had a beautiful raised flat upper deck done out in Australian timber (Tasmanian Oak I think?) which we spent most of our 3 days lying on and watching the islands go by on.

...and for two people who had never been sailing before (and never shown much interest in it!) it was absolutely brilliant and just what we were after.  We got to have a go at hauling the sails up (actually raising the throat up the mast was mine & Em's job) and cruised around on our first day under wind power alone.  We snorkelled at Bluepearl Bay on Hayman Island (the 6 star celebrity resort type place where apparently the servants all have to travel around underground so as not to be seen going to/from work by the celebs - if you are to believe the locals that is!); at which place the tropical fish life around the coral was amazing, and the people watching on the beach was pretty good too!  We got to see the resident Humpback Mauri Wrass, which is a beast of a fish about 1.5 metres long and pretty ugly.  He has lips like Mick Jagger and changes sex halfway through his life.  He swam underneath us whilst we were snorkelling and then the crew fed him from the dingy and he came right up to the surface and made a loud burp noise as he went for the food.

We moored in a quiet smooth water bay off of Hook Island overnight and slept on the boat, not very comfy in the cabin as the beds were made for 5'9" people I believe.  I would have loved to sleep on the deck as it was a cloudless night, but the dew came down pretty heavy so was glad I didnt have the option I guess.

Next day we motored (no wind) to Whitehaven Beach.  One of the top 4 most photographed places in Australia and voted one of the best beaches in the world.  Pretty stunning stuff:

The lookout was stupidly busy and cramped, so we went down to the beach for a look-see, saw sting rays and a small shark and squeaked in the squeaky white silica sand - it gets dumped there from a deep trench just out of the bay and is the purest form of silica apparently.  You can clean jewellery with it supposedly.   The boat then took us round to a less busy stretch and we chilled (or rather got sunburnt - it's a notorious place for it) there for 2-3 hours before heading to a different smooth water sheltered bay for our last night on board.  Saw dolphins on the way back, but they are getting boring!!!  Got a glimpse of a turtle near the boat.  No whales though sadly.  Did get a mess around on the dingy to make up for no whales: 

 

 

 

 

 

On our last day we went to Langford Island which is basically a sandbar that appears at low tide and is surrounded by coral again, but the Hawksbill turtles love it here, so we got to snorkel with them - actually swimming along with them was a very peaceful thing to do, they didnt seem to mind at all!  And just poke around on the exposed rocks at low tide.  Sadly it all had to come to an end and we were back on dry land at Airlie Beach again in the afternoon. 

Neither of us will forget the time we had at the Whitsundays; for the sailing, the snorkelling, the people on the boat (a good mix of Europeans and the superb crew),

 

 

 

 

 

the marine life (this picture does it no justice at all - but I don't have a waterproof camera!),

 

and the experience overall: