Since leaving Cairns and coming South, we seem to have very much the feeling you get returning from your holidays. Not sure why, but we do. Seems like as soon as we got to where we wanted to be, we turned around. We've certainly discovered how big Australia is - 2000 miles is a long time at 4-5 mph!
Anyway this is a photo of Hinchinbrook taken from Brampton Island where we overnighted close to the resort. I wonder if the Brampton holiday makers realise that within 1 mile of the resort there is a sign warning of Crocodiles. I'm sure just one croc can seriously ruin a high priced Island Adventure.
We sailed from Gloucester Island down towards Airlie Beach, but decided that the water was too rough so we skipped into Woodward Bay - which contains a very small resort. Apparently it was built for a TV series - it's supposed to be in Tahiti. After the series was finished rather than demolish it (as they were probably supposed to) they apparently turned it into a VERY high class resort (ie Multimillionaires row). While we were there we saw nobody going into or out of it - that's how exclusive it is - possibly one family/celebrity at a time. What you see is all of it with maybe 5 miles of woodland all around. Good to see how the other half live. Anyway we stayed there for a few days until the wind decreased and then set off for the 5 miles into Airlie. The wind might have dropped, but as soon as we rounded the bay and reached the open ocean again we were hit by high seas - eventually limped into Airlie very thankful to have survived another day!
The following day we left Airlie for the WhitSundays with the wind expected to be about 5 knots - well as soon as we were away from the mainland it shot up to 30 knots and very rought water - scared the shit out of us, but the boat handled it with no problem. We chickened out and anchored in a place called Cid Island and didn't move for a couple of days. Saw plenty of other boats out and about - but we wern't game. Probably if I'd asked Salty - he'd have told me that he could handle it no problem.
After leaving Cid Island we sailed to South Molle Island which is only 5 mile or so and stayed outside the resort there. The resort is lovely, but all of the facilities have been pruned back and it just seems to handle a boat full of backpackers that arrive nightly. We decided to have a drink in the bar and see if these backpackers were as rowdy as the manager told me they would be - ball shit - they probably only had a drink each and then off to bed! We on the other hand......
After South Molle we went to a resort at a place called Happy Bay. Gill had been on about it since she'd see it on the map and was really dissapointed when we missed it on the way up. Certainly the resort was pretty good and there were interesting walks around the island.
While we were there we saw this guy who is the image of Gill's brother Clive (who died 10 years or so ago). Always thought he'd go to a better place - but never thought it'd be Happy Bay Queensland.
This is the sunset from the boat at Happy Bay. Gill was extremely happy because we'd finally got to Happy Bay and she'd had a swim in their pool, seen her long lost brother not to mention a sundowner or two at the bar!
Lindeman Island is one of the more famous WhitSunday resorts. However like many of the others, it's closed down. This appears to be the main entertainment area - with dead leaves blowing through it. Seems really odd everything is still where was and it just looks like the owners, upped and walked away. I just don't think that is reasonable - if they can't make a go of it - sell it - or demolish it and return the island to it's original state. They shouldn't be allowed to just walk away without cleaning up after them.
Lindeman Island from the sea - everything still looks wonderful. Strangely enough all of the resort has been left open (ie without staff) and you can freely walk through the resort buildings and offices. I walked past 20 or so computers, stacked up which I could easily have removed - I'm sure before long somebody else will steal then, but it wasn't me!
Everything is there and available to pick up and remove/steal even to the room keys
Lindeman Pool - Centrespot of the resort. Now the pool is half full of rainfall and any other windblown crap.
Kepple Island Coconut palms. On the way North we'd walked along this beach which was littered with coconuts. Didn't have a knive with me, but I decided that when we came south I'd try one or two of them.
When we came back, took the knife and bashed my way into one - it was rotten. Suppose like anything else there is a season and the autumn was the right time to eat the Coconuts - next time!
This is the ferry that still joins Keppel to the mainland. The funny little structure on the front is actually a walkway with allows the passengers to disembark. The ferry just comes up to the beach and lowers the walkway and there you are - works well and is such a great experience compared with arriving at a 'normal' wharf - Priceless! The island still has day trippers and the budget resort with it's tents and cabin accomodation that we've stayed at with our kids and other family members in the past.
We climbed the mountain at Great Keppel and were rewarded with this view of the boat. There is a family (the Svensons) that live on the North side of Keppel away from the resort and they run a very low key resort, small and unobtrusive probably more like bread and breakfast with probably less than 10 paying guests. Anyway they seem to have become the unofficial Keppel Angels. They have put markings around the island to highlight the paths. This highlighting of the paths is really handy and it was much easier following their directions than blundering through ourselves. Being English we went for our walk around 11 o'clock and it took maybe three hours to the top of the mountain and back (in the mid day sun) without seeing another soul. Gill was struggling with the sun and the heat and I couldn't help but think about the young guy whose car had broken down a few days earlier in Queensland and he had died walking the 16 kms back to his farm. So we were struggling back down from the mountain (still 5 km or so to walk) and we found one of the Svenson's signs to a short cut back to the boat - without the hundreds of stones that they had painted to show the way we would never have found the short cut and who knows what would have happened. Gill (of course) had drunk all of her water before she got to the top - while I was of course was too tough/lazy or organise any water for myself. We've got to remember that Australia isn't like the UK with an ice-cream shop around every corner - which is of course one of the attractions. You can definitely die out here in less than a day from dehydration!
Water pounding over the rocks at Great Keppel