Greetings from Cooktown, FNQ (Far North Queensland for the uninitiated!). It is named in honour of Captain Cook whose ship Endeavour limped here after running aground on the Great Barrier Reef just south of here. If Cook hadn’t successfully repaired his ship, then Australians would probably be speaking French now!
Cooktown Harbour is small and estuarine – complete with crocodiles. We arrived at low water springs with a blustery NE wind creating a nasty chop. After trying to anchor three times (each time ending up on the sandbank!), the local onlookers took pity on us… We are now tied up alongside a fishing trawler! We now have sympathy with Captain Cook’s plight!
It’s been a slow haul along the Queensland coast. We have been day sailing with lots of stops, averaging around 20 miles a day. With over 1,000 miles still to go to Darwin, I think we need to get our skates on – cyclone season is creeping up on us!
Not to bore you with a blow-by-blow account (the photos show a good cross-section of our travels), I thought that I would just put together a synopsis of the top six places we liked:
- Bowen – a sleepy little town, waiting for the good times to happen. Lovely beaches, a happy-go-lucky attitude, the mining boom may or may not happen here!
- Magnetic Island – good anchorage, unpretentious, lovely walks, a lovely place just to chill – so we did!
- Cid Harbour – the best anchorage in the Whitsunday Islands, great walk to the summit, beaches OK, lovely surroundings – we went back there three times on our trip around the Islands.
- Cairns – a town, with lots going on and good facilities. Welcoming (we stayed three weeks, mainly to repair our refrigeration), and grew to love the place.
- Low Isles – best snorkelling so far – took us back to the islands of the Pacific and Caribbean.
- Hinchinbrook – visually a spectacular island, unfortunately most of it is inaccessible. With a little imagination from the Department of Parks and Wildlife this could be turned into a great getaway holiday destination for walks and outdoorsy types.
In general, we feel that a bit of tourist development would go a long way and could be done without risk to the environment. There seems to be a policy of herding everyone to the major spots (Whitsunday Island, Airlie Beach and the Cairns-to-Cape Tribulation strip). The rest, it seems, pick up a few crumbs and battle with the environmentalists to develop/expand their facilities. Commercial fishing could also be expanded with better infrastructure at the ports and better use of trains to move freight speedily. (It took a week to get the parts for our fridge from Brisbane to Cairns!) The overriding impression on our slow trip north is that there are thousands of miles of coastline with no signs of human habitation!
Sailing does get you close to the creatures of the deep. Whales and dolphins were common sights – although not very easy to photograph! The Great Barrier Reef snorkelling has been good, and the giant clams have been spectacular. We also picked up four Remora on our trip. These amazing fish (about 60cm long) have evolved a special gill on the top of their heads, with which they can adhere to moving objects, normally whales and large fish, although the hull of a boat is just as good – as long as you feed them, they will stay with you! We’ve seen koalas, platypuses, kangaroos-a-plenty and reptiles of various sorts. No sharks or crocs yet! Fishing has not been successful, and I am planning a trip to the local bait shop to pick up some tips!
Departing Cooktown, our last taste of civilisation for a while, we continued our journey north, the next destination being Lizard Island. This is the most northerly destination on the east coast that most Australians aspire to reach – what a lovely spot. Well worth the effort – lovely anchorage, glorious walks and the company of many cruisers keen to party! Here Captain Cook climbed the mountain in search of an exit through the Barrier Reef. The view from the top of Cook’s lookout is stunning, right out beyond the Barrier.
We spent a week here, just chilling, with the knowledge that after leaving this idyllic spot things will get tougher. Winds on the Queensland coast in the last quarter of the year are reasonably predictable -SE 15-20 knots. Our departure from Lizard was no exception, we were making good time so decided to leave behind Howick Island (a favourite stop over) and press on to Ninian Bay. This is one of those places that looks great shelter on the chart, but in reality, is miserable. The bay is too shallow to tuck in, so we had to anchor in an exposed spot. The winds steadily increased to 25-30 knots during the night so at dawn we decided to run to Flinders Island for shelter. As we rounded Cape Melville the winds were over 30knots complete with heavy squalls in reducing visibility. As luck would have it, shipping was heavy, so we decided to cut short our trip and tuck in behind Cape Melville.
We ended up staying here for three nights and rode out 50 knot winds. After slowly dragging our anchor, we laid a second and sat there comfortably until the winds abated. Flinders Island is the next main stop, a very protected anchorage with a few places of interest, rock art, burial sites, etc. Time was now starting to march on, so our stop here was a too short and we pressed on to Portland Roads, (to get telephone reception – 3-days away!) We stopped at Morris and Night Islands on the way. We had a few calls to make and collected and answered emails at this small community before setting off for Margaret Bay.
I must digress here a little and talk about coconuts! Throughout our travels in tropical waters, from the Caribbean through the Pacific eventually to Australia, we have never been too far from a coconut palm, however I have been surprised to find that coconut palms are few and far between in tropical Australia – they are treated as ornamental trees so you find them in parks, resorts and occasionally in gardens. This I could never understand. Conditions in this part of the world are ideal for growing this amazing plant and could provide loads of pleasure and income. One anchorage we stopped at was a little island called Morris Island. Here some enterprising sailor had planted coconut palms as sustenance for stranded sailors and also, thoughtfully, planted some ‘Century plants’ that throw up huge stalks, ideal for knocking down coconuts! But elsewhere, nothing. Why? The answer may be two-fold. I have come across a reference that the Parks and Wildlife Commission decided that the coconut palm was not native to Australia and set about pulling up all the palm trees growing in National Parks! It is also evident that coconuts require a little bit of human intervention to enable them to flourish however the local indigenous community are not known for their horticulture so no help here! As Billy Connelly observed, if you are swimming in Australian waters and someone shouts ‘SHARK’, most people run from the water… The Aborigines, however, shout ‘DINNER’ and jump in! Maybe this has become the fate of washed-up coconuts!
So where is this taking us, you may ask? Well, Margaret Bay is one of those lovely anchorages – white sand, mangroves and the odd coconut palm. However, across the Cape on the windward side, along a path marked out with ‘blue’ objects, you come to Indian Bay. Completely fringed with coconut palms ten of meters deep, this 10km beach restored my faith and shows that, left to their own devices, coconuts can thrive in Australia. Margaret Bay and Indian Bay are not part of any National Park and lie hundreds of kilometres from the nearest road. I’ll leave you to ponder the rest… (I have started my own crusade and when I see a likely coconut washed up on the beach, I plant it in spot where it is likely to thrive!)
Ever northward we plod – our next destination Cairncross Island was just a stopover before the final stretch to round Cape York. With a nice breeze behind us we set off for this next staging post, however the anchorage looked uninviting, so we decided to try to make Escape River. We arrived just as it was getting dark at low water. We started to feel our way up the river – the only hazard shown on the chart and pilot being a rock on the starboard side. We spotted this and felt confident proceeding ahead – as we motored on, all of a sudden, we came to an abrupt stop with an almighty Bang! We had hit an uncharted rock! I put the engine in hard astern and crept back. Thankfully we were off! A quick inspection below – all ok – no water flowing in – but where to go if the charts couldn’t be trusted? Discretion being the better part of valour we turned around and found a suitable spot at the river entrance and dropped anchor alongside a myriad of pearl rafts. A safe but restless and uncomfortable night ensued. Couldn’t dive to inspect the damage as we were in heart of murky crocodile-infested waters!
As you can guess, we didn’t stop here and headed out early the next morning to round Cape York the most northerly point in Australia. We rounded the Cape passing through a scattering of barren, rocky islands including Possession Island which is of historic significance. An obelisk had been placed here that reads:
LIEUTENANT JAMES COOK R.N.
ON THE “ENDEAVOUR”
LANDED ON THIS ISLAND
WHICH HE NAMED
POSSESSION ISLAND
AND IN THE NAME OF HIS MAJESTY
KING GEORGE III
TOOK POSSESSION OF THE WHOLE EASTERN
COAST OF AUSTRALIA
FROM THE LATITUDE 38° SOUTH TO THIS PLACE
AUGUST 22nd 1770
As an aside, there had been numerous monuments erected on this site over the years, but all had been subject to vandalism… The most recent was considered ‘almost indestructible’.
An easy sail found us in Seisia that evening – a lovely, well- protected anchorage where we could refuel – ourselves and Poco – ready for the wilds of Arnhemland. Seisia had a well-stocked general store, fuel was available – but no grog. In order to top up our supplies, we needed to get to Bamaga – a long 5km walk or hitch hike. Luckily it was easy to get a lift. Restrictions applied and we were allowed one case of beer and one carton of wine each – hopefully this would last us the six weeks we had planned to get us to Darwin.