There was much to think about when planning our trips to the islands, including what we would eat and how much fuel we would need.
I thought it might be useful for others if I wrote something about these aspects particularly, since we’ve not covered them in other posts. Continue reading
We didn’t quite reach Armidale last night, but getting to Glen Innes wasn’t bad after all the delays and detours.
As we drove down into New South Wales, the sun came out and we enjoyed beautiful sweeping views over rolling green hills dotted with homesteads, with swollen rivers winding their way through the valleys.
Today has been more of the same, although a little spoilt by the pot holes along the New England Highway between Glen Innes and Uralla. And we’re getting a bit over the loooooong journey and are eager to get home now.
We’re stopping just north of Sydney at Gosford tonight to catch up with friends, then we’ll be on the home stretch tomorrow!
After an uneventful drive down what we have come to call the ‘Lumpy Leichardt’, we reached Moonie Crossroads in southern Queensland last night.
Rain had set in, making sleeping in a swag or tent and cooking outdoors somewhat unappealing. Thankfully, Moonie had a motel as well as caravan park and roadhouse, so we found ourselves in relative luxury: a roof over our heads, an ensuite bathroom and even a telly.
With rain forecast for the rest of this week, yesterday we decided it was time to head homewards, a few days ahead of schedule. And despite the rain, it’s getting super hot up here! By 7am it’s getting too hot to be in the sun, so you can imagine what it’s like in the middle of the day…
We only drove as far as Rockhampton yesterday – a distance of 484km that took us about 5.5 hours all up. Fuel economy is going much better – we took the windscreen off the boat for the journey, lowering the profile by about 50cm and making us much more streamlined.
We’re happy with all the research and adventuring of the last few weeks, and all the data and photographs we’ve gathered – and happy about the prospect of returning home too :)
The last few days we’ve been trekking all over Hamilton Island, on the many and varied bush hiking trails there.
Hamilton may not be not the obvious choice for hikers looking to experience the Whitsundays, because it’s almost synonymous with relaxation and the lay-by-the-pool-with-a-piña-colada island resort lifestyle. However, we were pleasantly surprised by the walks we experienced.
Much of the vegetation feels quite open by comparison to the dense canopy-covered forests of many Whitsunday islands, sending beautiful dappled light down through the trees. There was much less undergrowth and fewer climbing vines, giving walking on Hamilton Island a feeling of being in the Australian bush, but with palm trees. Continue reading
All the islands we’ve visited so far on this trip have been national park islands, so we could try out as many of the campsites as possible for ourselves. But even the most die-hard of campers will admit that after a while, the effort involved makes you think longingly of a very different sort of holiday.
The wind has been increasing in strength again over the last week, limiting what we could do in our own little boat. So we turned our attention to Hamilton Island, to which there are frequent ferry transfers, several bush walks to research – and a little R&R to sneak in at the same time.
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We returned to the mainland yesterday after last three days exploring Lindeman Island and it’s surrounding islands. We camped at Boat Port, the northwestern bay of Lindeman Island, which is well protected from the prevailing southeasterly breeze. Lindeman is just to the south of the main group of modernly frequented islands. But it has been at the centre of European activity and indeed tourism around the Whitsundays since the the 19th century. I was fascinated to learn some of its stories through reading what has become a steady reading companion – Ray Blackwood’s The Whitsunday Islands – An Historical Dictionary. It’s no Game of Thrones, but it is fascinating.
With a somewhat checkered beginning to Anglo-Australian settlement of the area, Lindeman was sadly the scene for a grizzly murder of two white sailors from the boat named Ellida in 1861 by the local Aborigines. They had a camp of about 40 people on Lindeman, probably because it’s one of a mere few with a reliable water supply. It’s a mystery as to what motivated the atrocity, perhaps something the sailors did caused mortal offense. Nobody will ever know as history only tells one version of the story. Continue reading
Those who know me well, know that I don’t get on very well with bugs of the biting variety. I tend to get bitten at a ratio of at least 5:1 to my companions, and have a much stronger reaction to bites, getting large painful welts and blisters that take days to subside. Two of my dearest friends know this better than anyone, following a particular episode camping in the Kimberley, WA several years ago, when I was so badly bitten by mosquitoes I could barely walk – each bite swelling up into painful blisters.
Pretty gross huh? Well you know you have good friends when they wash feet like that for you. Continue reading
We (Anthony and Emma Colfelt) are researching the walks, campsites and resorts of the Whitsundays to develop content for the well known book by Anthony’s parents, David and Carolyn Colfelt 100 Magic Miles of the Great Barrier Reef – The Whitsunday Islands, website and potential new books by Windward Publications. In typical starving writers’ style, we are for the most part camping and travelling in an old runabout held together with Sikaflex, which so far has stayed afloat and been a trusty steed… well, mostly.
Just to give you a sense of what we’re trying to accomplish whilst we’re up here on the latest research trip, below is the list of islands we are hoping to visit – all of which have a campsite or bushwalks, resorts, or all of the above. You can also see the ones we’ve been to so far on our Google Map, and they are crossed out below. Continue reading
After some R&R yesterday, we decided to take the boat out this morning to check out some of the islands close to the mainland that just have campsites – no walks or resorts that require a longer visit to explore.
