29 July 2010
We spent a week in Mackay. Our son Scott flew in from Melbourne where he had been visiting school friends, stayed on board for three nights and flew out again from Mackay airport to see more friends in Brisbane, Sydney and finally Perth. As he left, my twin brother Peter arrived from Vancouver. He last sailed aboard Voyageur in Turkey two summers ago, the year we bought her, and before that he sailed the leg from Fiji to Cairns on Stella. At the time he described the trip like being in a washing machine on top of a mechanical bull. This time we have promised him wonderful downwind sailing in flat seas! The weather in Mackay was decidedly Scottish. The wind blew, the rain tipped down. It was not at all what we expected, nor did the locals. Mackay is very much a working town. It is a major exporter of sugar cane and coal which is why up to 73 ships were anchored off the port waiting for cargo. We booked a tour. Kevin our driver said he had never experienced such miserable weather. Our first stop took us to the ranch that John Mackay had set up when he came over the Blue Mountains. The house, Green Mount, was a step back in time and wonderfully preserved. We passed mile upon mile of sugar cane on our way into the Blue Mountains. Now the mist and rain precluded any views at all as we climbed up through the tropical rain forest and by the time we arrived at the Eungella National Park to see platypus even they had decided to retire to their Broken River riverbank burrows. Only the baby turtles popped their heads up for a photo shoot. The day was a real washout, it was such a shame.
Welcome to the Whitsundays!
With two major provisioning shops behind us we were ready to head north through the Whitsunday Islands, our eventual destination on the 18th August being at Thursday Island, 750nm around the top of Australia. At least half of the rally have gone touring. Having enjoyed two months in Australia on our last trip we feel very lucky that we can now concentrate on the cruising side. There is just so much to see around this massive coastline. Within half an hour of leaving Mackay Marina we had our first sighting of a humpback whale. Between July and September they are a common sight in the Whitsundays, migrating from their feeding grounds in Antartica to give birth in these subtropical waters. By mid afternoon we anchored in Maryport Bay on Brampton Island 25nm miles from Mackay. It gave us a chance to try out our new walkie talkie headsets, a gift from Peter. It upset him greatly that we would shout to each other from the bow to the helm to make ourselves heard when coming in to drop the anchor. David has become quite hard of hearing since he has taken up diving, or is it all the G and T's! They worked a treat and definitely made for an easy and relaxed communication between us. We were soon ashore walking the track over to the other side of the side of the island to Western Bay, part of the Brampton Island National Park which is all within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. The sights and sounds were quite magical. Butterflies were everywhere, the Blue Tiger being by far the most common. The birdsong was all around us. I jumped out of my skin when a wallaby jumped in front of me on the path. They are astonishingly tame. The island resort does not welcome yachtsmen so we remained a discreet distance. It was our first taste of the Whitsundays. Pretty pine clad slopes, empty white sand beaches between rocky shores, it almost had a Scottish feel to it. The water temperature is decidedly cool, but days are pleasantly warm and sunny. From now on as we venture north it is just going to get warmer and drier until it is back once more to the heat and humidity of an equatorial climate.
Susan Mackay