Our Outback Experience

We really felt we were getting into the outback when we arrived at the small town called Miles 340km west of Brisbane. The earth had become an intense red colour and we were stopped in our tracks when we spotted emus in a field. The roads seemed to never end with very little traffic passing us and no mobile coverage this was when we started monitoring our fuel gauge very closely.

Arriving in Mitchell (population 1000) we came across trees we have never seen before called Queensland Bottle Trees their name deriving from their shape. The swelling is due to water held in the trunk making them ideally suited to the outback climate. This town is famous for its artesian spa pools which are pumped up hot from the Great Artesian Basin - David gave them a try. The same source provides the water supply for the town and consequently the cold taps in our motel produced hotter water than the hot.

Our furtherest inland destination was an outback town called Charleville, 638km from Brisbane, we were interested in visiting their state of the art observatory which proved to be an amazing experience.

Its not until you get into the outback that you realise how tough the farmers must have had it in recent years battling the drought. This year they had a different problem to deal with as they have just had major floods throughout the area. The water has subsided in the towns and a huge recovery program is underway as they try and get back to business as usual.

Charlesville is the biggest town in this area and home to a flying doctor base. This base services approximately 622000 sq km of southwest Qld - an area almost the size of the UK (unreal!) and we took a tour around the centre.

There is also a weather station where the lone resident meteorologist gives free 'tours' as he goes through the morning routine of taking and reporting various measurements. The measurements are used by the pilots coming and going from Charlesville and are also fed into the models used for the national forecasts. The finale of the tour was to watch the weather balloon being launched into the atmosphere as shown in the picture: this happens automatically each day at exactly 9:15am. The balloon takes measurements every two seconds until it reaches high in the upper atmosphere and bursts - the balloon plus instruments including GPS is lost each time.

Currently heading back to the coast and stopped in Toowoomba which is a very pleasant town and seems very civilised after the outback. Picture shows Table-top mountain at Toowoomba.

Tomorrow night we will be back on the boat. Will we head north to the Whitsundays or will we head south to Sydney???


Find out next blog :)

Cyclone chasers - Balina to Bungerberg

First stop Rainbow Beach where we were picked up in a 4WD truck ready for a day tour of Fraser Island. This island is World Heritage listed as being the largest sand island on the planet where dozens of lakes, rainforests and sand blows cover vast parts of the island. It is home to 230 species of birds, Australia's purest dingo and many other species. We found ourselves having a very close encounter with large goanna lizards (1 meter in length) and had to chase them as they tried to ambush camp lunch. Pictured are a couple of the stops we had on the tour: the rainforest on the way up to Lake Mackenzie and the wreck of the Maheno to which we raced along the beach at high speed to reach.

Next day a short stop at Tin Can Bay, one of the few places you can feed wild dolphins : it all started in 2006 when a local found a dolphin in the bay unable to feed itself due to a shark attack. The locals started feeding the dolphin fish and it's been coming back ever since.

We headed on to Hervey Bay staying a few nights intending to do some diving only to be informed Cyclone Ului was due to hit Queensland in the coming days and waves between 4-7 meters and strong winds were predicted.......that was the diving out.

We continued on to Bundaberg visiting the rum distillery where we were forced to sample several different products. We stayed near Mon Repos beach which is the largest turtle nesting area in Australia. In March the last nests are hatching and we headed down hopeful to see the baby turtles heading to the sea. The night before we arrived five nests had hatched, but of course we weren't so lucky and despite waiting several hours no nests opened when we were there. Still the rangers did dig into one of the previously departed nests to count and classify the broken eggs which they do for research and in doing this we did come across one lonely hatchling who hadn't made it passed a grass root and had been struggling to escape all day. This one was released and we watched him struggle a further 20 metres down the beach to be swept away by the growing waves.

The lucky turtle :)
We were in Bundaberg when the cyclone hit Makay and The Whitsundays causing a lot of property and boat damage. In the end we were lucky not to be able to leave Ballina in the boat as we would of been very close to the cyclone action.

Due to the sea condition water activities are out so we have decided to venture inland heading to the Queensland outback and more adventure.

Heading north to Queensland

Well, we've finally left Ballina - but not by boat. Having spent 3 weeks on shore for Caroline's knee operation and partial recovery, we returned to the boat, keen to head on about a week ago. Unfortunately the weather was not great for several days and when it looked good for us to go last weekend, there was still a 1.5 - 2 metre swell hitting the bar (the sand bank at the entrance to Ballina). While not huge, this was still enough to generate significant breaking waves at the bar - see the pictures below for an idea - and prevent us from getting out to sea. After spending several days checking the bar, the swell and weather were building again and it was clear we'd be waiting another week at least for another chance....all very frustrating.
So....we changed our plans and have rented a car, planning to head north to Queensland and do a bit of touring, staying in cabins along the way. We are aiming to get to Hervey Bay visit Fraser Island and do some diving returning to the boat in three weeks time. When we return we will start to head back to Pittwater (Sydney) which should take us around four weeks weather permitting.




It's a bit disappointing not to get further, but on the plus side we have been to the Whitsundays, which was our ultimate goal, several times before with friends. We've also had a great adventure already and now are starting to look ahead to return to Sydney, keen to start new projects.

Finishing with a picture of one of the stunning sunset's on our trip.

Cheerio for now Dave, Caroline & Archie xxx

Samurai Gallery

The operation went well and hoping to be back on the boat at the weekend. We were going to post a shot of Caroline on her crutches but our camera has broken. We suspect some bird poo may have got into the mechanics - so much for being lucky!
As we have some time to kill we decided to share some photos that just missed being blogged.
Dave cooking up a storm: its the meat tray we won in Lake Macquarie and went vegetarian for quite a few nights afterwards. Too much meat!

Archie frequently patrols the decks looking for dolphins and sticks his head through any open window to check he is not missing anything. Well food mainly...........

Caroline is pictured donning her wet weather gear and surprisingly its really nice to have some rain as the temperatures are usually in the 30's.

Dave bringing Archie back to the boat after his walk. Archie is getting very brave in the dinghy these days launching himself at docks confidently when we are meters away. He has had to be fished out once because he has misjudged the distance. This is a very different Archie from when we started the trip and we're glad to see he's feeling more comfortable.

And finally, Dave trying to hoist the main sail to catch every breath of wind: it seems to be either too calm or blowing a buster. Rarely perfect conditions and we have found we motor sail most of the time - but hey, what's the rush?

Ballina

Hooray! We have left the Clarence River as the swell has calmed after nearly two weeks allowing us to cross the bar safely. The boat is anchored at Ballina where we will be leaving her for 10 days. We have hired a car and returned to Port Maquarie in order for Caroline to have a small operation on her knee. We have been asured she will be back sailing in two weeks everything going well :)

There are quite a lot of sea birds around and Caroline was hit by one messy bird poo, which we will assume is a lucky sign.

A big congratulations to Karen and Peter on the arrival of their first child, Lara Astrial Hocking, who was born on February 10th. We are looking forward to meeting her :)

Carry on up the Clarence

We are currently unable to leave the Clarence River due to 2 - 3m swells offshore and moving to the next destination which is Ballina the sea conditions need to be pretty calm as the entrance has a difficult sand bar crossing. Looking like we'll be here for a few days yet!
But the Clarence River is quite a pleasant place, with a few places to explore up river. We motored up to Harwood where the Pacific Highway bridge, closed for six months of repairs, blocks further progress (pictured).
The fields along-side the river are all full of sugar cane in this area. We also passed quite a few huge mansions along the bank, one for instance having what seemed to be a 9 hole pitch and put over the front lawns. Sugar cane appears to be good business. The picture shows the sugar mill at Harwood close to where we anchored.




We travelled a little further up river by dinghy in order to visit Maclean, the 'Scottish town' of NSW. All the telegraph poles here are painted with different tartans as shown in the picture. They also hold highland games here each year. Made me feel quite nostalgic!

Coffs and Yamba - Clarence River

We left Port Macquarie a couple of days ago overnighting at Coffs Harbour where we anchored beside the old jetty. We are currently at Yamba which is a little town at the mouth of the Clarence River. We planned to travel down the river as there are some really interesting stops but the bridge over the Pacific Highway which we would need to get opened is closed for 6 months while they do repairs :( We can still travel 8 nmiles up river so will spend a night at the bridge and do some walking.
Travelling up the coast from Coffs we passed the Solitary Islands which are environmentally protected and span for about 40nmiles, very popular with divers. The first picture shows South Solitary Island - there are several others dotted around.

Reaching Yamba in the Clarence river was a challenge as we had to navigate through a convoluted, narrow and shallow channel, to a marginally wider bay which was already quite full of boats. We eventually found somewhere to lay anchor from where the second picture was taken. As this shows we've had some slightly stormy weather while here, apparently side effects from a tropical depression up in Queensland.

Just as we were thinking we can do this everything is getting easier we managed to gaff (puncture) the dingy when coming up to an old wharf. The picture below shows David cleaning (which was overdue) and repairing it which took a while. The other pic shows me sporting an eBay purchase which I thought would come in really handy: a fold-up bike. This is the first time we have used it and could be the last as its a bit of a palaver getting it off the boat and set up.