Tales from the Queensland Coast

G’day Boatbloggies, 

And welcome to another action packed edition of The Boatblog®

We’ve been Carrying on up the Queensland Coast, through The Whitsundays, and very nice it is too.

They are all little bits of paradise in their own ways.

We had some pretty good winds and found that – like the best guitar amps – our boat goes up to ELEVEN!

We anchored off Hummocky Island, Hunter Island, Pearl Island, Naked Lady Bay (well we couldn’t not stop there) and Airlie Beach. Ju came here nearly forty years ago (doesn’t that make you feel old) and he’s glad that they seem to have remembered.

One of our favourites was Magnetic Island.

Where we went Koala hunting.

And actually saw some.

They are particularly cute, and one of the few animals in Australia that is unlikely to kill you. 

Though the Aussies call them Drop Bears. Apparently they get so stoned on eucalyptus leaves that they drop out of the tree, and if they land on your head can kill you. Unless they’ve just made that up to wind up the Poms.

There was parrot feeding in one of the parks which Lyn especially enjoyed.

And great views from the top of the mountain.

By now we were well and truly in The Land of the Crocodile.

And we wanted to see some. So we went up the Hinchinbrooke Channel which is famous for croc sightings with our friends Pelles and Ullas on Loupan.

We looked all night with searchlights, but didn’t see a single one. Though we’re pretty certain they saw us. 

The next day, Pelles said there was one under our boat.

Hmmm. Not convinced. This AI isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

But by now, our appetite was well and truly whetted. We wanted to see crocs, and our next stop – Cairns – was the place to do it.

If there’s two things that we really don’t want to get too close to, it’s jet skis and crocodiles. How often have we sat in an anchorage fuming as jet skis come bombing past, wondering why anyone would want to go to nowhere so quickly. And why we don’t want to be near crocodiles seems to be pretty obvious. So in theory a jet ski crocodile safari should be about one of the worst things we could do.

Well…adventure before dementia, Ju and Ross from Acushnet decided to give it a go.

It turns out that zooming along on a jet ski is brilliant! We were getting up to 40mph and it’s very exciting. And strangely, the urge to go and buzz an anchored yacht is almost overwhelming. (We didn’t! – no need to write in and complain to the editor.)

And you can get pretty close to the crocs. These are the salt water version. The Aussies call them salties, or swamp lizards. And as they say down under, they’re pretty bloody lethal mate.

This one is over 4 metres.

They are like prehistoric monsters, and really quite magnificent, though Ju was quite glad he could zoom off at 40mph when the croc came for him.

The freshwater ones apparently are more frightened of you then we are of them. Though maybe the person who said that doesn’t know quite how frightened we are of them. Besides, they’re virtually invisible. Can you see this one? (Answer below.)

We won’t be going swimming anytime soon.

With so many animals that can kill you it seemed sensible to learn how to protect ourselves. So Ju went down to the rifle range.

Not bad for a beginner. 

Mind you it helps having a laser sight.

We also went up the old Kuranda Railway into the mountains.

Which was all very pleasant.

Then to Port Douglas and The Mossman Gorge.

And of course we couldn’t miss the opportunity to go SCUBA diving on the Great Barrier Reef.

Ju was very pleased with his new underwater camera light, which made the colours of the coral even more spectacular.

So look out for LOTS more underwater photos in coming blogs. Yippee.

This is a huge nudibranch. They’re normally tiny, but this was about six inches. 

There’s a joke there somewhere.

Australia can be a quite dangerous place. We’re often surprised how anyone actually survives at all. We all know about the sharks, the crocs, the funnel webs and the snakes. But there’s plenty of other things to trap the unwary, and in case you aren’t nervous enough already, there’s plenty of signs to remind you.

Stingers…

Waterfalls…

Jellyfish..

Submerged boulders and “People have died here…”

Cassowaries…

And even the museums all have their dangers.

You don’t see that at the Imperial War Museum.

But now it’s time to leave Cairns and head towards Thursday Island, which is halfway between Wedesday Island and Friday Island. We kid you not. Captain Cook was obviously running out of ideas by the time he got this far north.

So just time for a gratuitous sunset.

…and an arty party photograph called “Rocks.”

And for those of you without the David Attenborough gene, here is where the crocodile was hiding.

G’day for now cobbers.

Ju & Lyn