Wonderful Whitsundays - day 1 to 3

Whitsunday Bareboat Charter - ‘Mintaka’

 

Saturday 30th August – 10th September

Day 0 - Harbour Sleep Over

At first sight we couldn’t believe the size of Mintaka, although we had been imagining a big cat, it was only when we stepped aboard that we realised (with some trepidation) what we had taken on!! We loaded our personal belongings on and the boys selected cabins, and then went off to shop for provisions for the next 10 days. The first night was exciting, and it took us some time to organise our supplies before having a dinner of choc-chip cookies on the trapeze and a restless sleep anticipating all that was to come.

Getting familiar with the essentials!

 



Sleeping in the port cabin



 

Day 1 - Plain Sailing!

 

We met our Cumberland Charter guide at 8am who was extremely friendly and gave us a thorough brief of the area, boat and potential hazards. I took copious notes as he spoke, as he gave us a wealth of information regarding fishing spots and snorkelling. We sorted wet-suits, ice and last minute forgotten items before leaving the harbour with our Cumberland man at the helm. We practised anchoring, raising and trimming sails and navigation before he said ‘my work is done’ and left us to sail to our first night destination; Hook Island! We sailed for a couple of hours to before reaching Stonehaven and picking up our first mooring of the trip. The weather was fair and all went smoothly, we all tucked up early in our bunks and settled down to being rocked to sleep.

Our table was dedicated to navigating!

 

Day 2 - Alarm Bells are Ringing

We were rudely awakened at 4.30am by the sound of a piercing alarm. Simon and I both jumped out of bed, cracking heads on low ceilings and toes on unknown steps in a blind panic searching for the source of the noise. It turned out that the port bilge had reached its maximum level and wanted to be pumped out, but the alarm wouldn’t turn off until it was pumped! After several hours of locating portable bilge pumps and handles the water was cleared as the sun came up and the kids appeared asking what was for breakfast!! They had slept through the whole commotion and were none the wiser! So the first day of living on a yacht began, and Simon and I settled in for the sometimes less than relaxing reality of being on the ocean!

We headed around to the north of Hook Island and sampled the snorkelling at Butterfly Bay and Luncheon Bay, both of which were fabulous but Luncheon had more colourful coral and we saw our first big fish – a Hump Headed Mauri Wrasse. Huge bat fish amazed us as they swam around the back of our boat and we all got to hand feed and stroke them. We slept well on a mooring that night and not an alarm was heard!

Hump headed Mauri Wrasse



Wonderful coral with plumes of fish





Bat fish are curious - this one wanted to check out the camera!

Day 3 - Snorkell mania!

With a taste for snorkelling we headed for the Pinicales and waited for a mooring to become available. Once we secured the Mothership, we used the tender to explore the area, which boasts well developed colourful coral bommies with good fish life. We followed this with a trip to Manta Ray Bay which was superb, we swam surrounded by schools of blue and yellow fish, and saw a fierce looking giant trevally and a couple of Hump Headed Mauri Wrasse.


Angel fish and Parrot fish were everywhere

Diving to get closer to the Mauri Wrasse

Snorkelling from the back of Mothership



 

 

Touring Northeast Qld

Travelling to Abergowie Forest; Broadwater Camp

Wednesday 27th to Saturday 30th August

Although best laid plans were set the night before, things didn’t go to plan in the morning!! We had prepared to get away early from Coconut, but a damp evening led to soaking wet chairs the next morning and delayed get-away. The trip from Cairns took in Mission Beach and the stormy parental relations slowly passed as we neared camp. Broadwater camp was lovely, surrounded by tropical rainforest, and we enjoyed a good fire. The bush turkeys popped in and out and the next morning large lizard graced us with it’s presence, demonstrating climbing and camouflage skills!!

Although this camp was restful, it there wasn’t enough to keep us for longer than a night, so we packed up and headed to Wallaman Falls.

Broadwater camp in lush rainforest

The monitor lizard that made a visit

 

 

Wallaman Falls

The big walk

It was great decision to spend a night at Wallaman Falls, although the information regarding access for camper trailers was confusing, there was plenty of room. A couple of really good walks led out from the site, the one we did was down to the falls. This is the highest permanent single drop waterfall, and it certainly did feel very high!! We seemed to descend forever (reminding us that what goes down must come back up!) and the walk had some very steep drops with breath taking views. The return journey was tough, but we spent the afternoon travelling so were well rested when we arrived at Proserpine.

Wallaman falls

Mountainous lookout beyond the falls

A very steep and jungly walk

 

Proserpine

Saturday Sort-out

The camp site at Gunna-Go was spacious with good facilities and gave us a good opportunity to organise stuff ready for boarding the yacht at 3pm. We extracted the essentials of house and home from the camper trailer and took off to Shute Harbour to meet the Cumberland Charter Yacht people and sleep aboard our floating home for the first night.

Exploring Tropical North Qld

Cairns - Coconut Resort

 Wednesday 20th to Wednesday 27th August

Wow!! As we approached Cairns through the Atherton Tablelands the scenery changed dramatically with huge rainforest covered mountains all around us and a European feeling to the place!



Nemo tour of Coconut Resort

Coconut resort was exactly what we needed, R &R in a big way! Two swimming pools, jumping pillows, tennis courts, outdoor movies every night and a camp kitchen to die for!  We took a few days to just chill around camp and play with the kids, Simon became tennis coach of the year and we all decided that badminton is the game for us!!



Campsite at Coconut

We spent a day exploring the hinterland, looking at amazing fig trees that are murderously beautiful!! They strangle other trees over many years forming spectacular roots in their ruthless pursuit of survival. We enjoyed Yungaburra and day dreamed about becoming farmers, then went and had a delicious Swiss meal at the local restaurant.



Cloudy mountains

Swiss Restaurant

 



Cheers!

Outer Reef Tour

 

 

The Great Barrier Reef was one of our highlights in this area, we spent a bumpy hour travelling with Seastar to the outer reef, but the coral and sea life were worth the effort. The beautiful turtle and fierce barracuda were some of our favourites.



Snorkelling off the boat



Blue stag horn coral









This one killed Nemos' Mum!

Very intimidating Baracuda

Karumba to Undara Qld

Manic Schedule!!

 

Tuesday 19th to Wednesday 20th August

Our plan  – drive to Karumba set up and sleep, get up at 5.30am for a fishing charter till lunch, then pack up camp and drive to Undara Volcanic Park ready for an 8.30am tour! Although this sounded good in theory it wasn’t so much fun in practice!!

 

Karumba

We joined a local fishing charter, Kerry’s, and went seeking Blue Threadfin Salmon and School Mackerel in the Gulf. Karumba is known for its abundant fishing and we weren’t disappointed, as we reeled in plenty of fish between us!! The breeze was pretty fresh though and we had to stay well rugged up, but it was well worth the effort as we left with 7 good eating fish. After the charter it took Simon and the boys some time to clean and fillet the fish so we didn’t get away from camp till after 2pm. We were facing a good 6 hour drive so it was going to be a late one!

 

The only person on board to catch a Skip Jack

The only one of us to catch a mackerel

Everyone holding their own catch!

How many kilometres??

‘How can it have been 50 km’s a minute ago and now it’s over 80kms?’ was Simon’s pained lament! What’s a few km’s between friends? Every time I added up those little numbers on the map I got different answers!!  Needless to say it was a long and stressful journey to Undara!

 

Undara

 

We arrived at 8pm, drove several times around the circuit before I could work out the directions to our site, and with frayed tempers set up camp. Exhausted the kids went to bed almost immediately and we watched a Breaking Bad to thaw the out the chill between us before turning in.

 

Undara is a great outback creation for those who have not got the opportunity to really drive off the beaten track. We saw the fascinating lava tubes, but unfortunately had to take a guided tour to achieve this, which meant listening to some uninspiring commentary for 2 hours. We finished the tour at 10am and were driving away in less than an hour having spent a sum total of 14hours in the park… speedykniebes on a mission to get to Cairn’s and the end of the first leg.

 

Lava tube

 

Lawn Hill National Park Qld

Lawn Hill Gorge (Boodimulla) to Karumba

 Friday 15th to Monday18th August

The drive from Kingfisher Camp to Lawn Hill was amazing, beautiful views, thick bull dust and lots of wildlife. Jacob got to have a go at driving, as the road was deserted. He did a good job although he wished a clutch had never been invented!!

 

Bull dust

First driving lesson

'It's harder than it looks!'

Simon had a little bother with his nuts!

The long and winding road!

The best of the Rest!

Lawn Hill is our favourite gorge, and believe me it’s had a lot of competition!! It is a 3 canyon system which is so remote that it remains unspoilt by visitors. We walked the length of the gorge to the upper lookout and then back to the waterfall to swim, and although it was a 7km hike it was relatively simple with minimal rock hoping. There are fresh water crocs to be seen sunning themselves on the banks but no Salties so there is safe swimming throughout the gorge. The kayaking is amazing, with hardly anyone else around we glided silently to the upper gorge, swimming in some great rapids before paddling back.

 

Dinosaurs Yay or Yawn?

 

I insisted that we travel to see the World Heritage Riversleigh area of the park, where ancient fossil discoveries have been found. Palaeontologists have discovered a giant flightless bird ‘Thunderbird’ and the largest predatory freshwater crocodile ever known the ‘Barra’. However the site was really boring for the kids, as they were expecting to see the whole creatures reconstructed, but all there was were bits of their bones in rocks!! Overall no-one thanked me for dragging them here, but it was another tick in the box of things to see!

 

After some discussion about the next phase of our trip we decided to make a slight change to the plans and visit Karumba for one night to enjoy a spot of fishing.

Northwest Qld

King Fisher Camp (KFC) to Lawn Hill

 

Thursday 14th to Friday 15th August

We had heard lots of good things about King Fisher Camp so pulled in for a look before heading to Lawn Hill NP. The roads are all dirt to reach this place; dry and dusty like a desert but as soon as you drive into King Fisher the birds are chirping, wallabies hop over green grass, there are shady trees whispering all around and the tranquillity is tangible. We were planning on stopping for a fish, but stayed the night to soak up some of the stillness after days on the road.

 

The Williamson River flows beside the campground, and provided an opportunity to launch the ‘foot rest’, whoops, I mean tinny!! The boys went for a fish while I had a bit of quiet pottering at camp (bliss) and then joined them for a boat tour up the river. The fishing was good, Logan caught a large catfish (his largest fish ever) and a Sooty Grunter (affectionately known as a scooty Gunther!), Simon caught 2 Sooty Grunter’s and I even hooked a Gar fish within a couple of minutes of holding a rod! Jacob was the only one who didn’t have fish fingers, but he wasn’t disappointed as he’d seen a sign for KFC and thought it might mean chicken and chips for dinner (unfortunately for him it was an abbreviation for the camp!!)

 



 

 

Many hours on the road leads to some holiday vocabulary!!

Current Speedykniebe Terminology:

 

KFC – King Fisher Camp Jacob was surprised to see a fast food place so remotely!

Bumhug – humbugs get renamed to while away the hours!

Gonad – Grey Nomads as named by Jacob and Logan who didn’t know what a gonad was!

 

 

 

Hells Gate on NT/Qld Border

Crossing the QLD Border; Lorella Springs to Hell’s Gate

 Wednesday 13th August

After an awe inspiring walk amongst the towering pillars of the Southern Lost City in Limmen, we set of with the intention of crossing the border. This would be a long and arduous drive, and Simon is doing all of the hard work! The road conditions require experience and significant concentration, and I’m just too damn nervous to drive at the speed that he can!

 

Lost City

The country changes little on the NT stretch, but as we approached the border the trees became denser and the road narrowed. Crossing the border was a relief, with a final push to Hell’s Gate Roadhouse for an overnight just as it got dark. The fella who owns Hell’s Gate Roadhouse has built the place from scratch in 1986 and it is now on the market for $7million! I think you'd have to pay me that to live there as it's so remote!!