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 3 times (each time ending up on the sandbank!), the local onlookers took pity on us… We are now tied up alongside a fishing boat! 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 came back here 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 inner Great Barrier Reef snorkelling was good and the giant clams were spectacular. Poco Andante 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 – and sometimes humans! – although the hull of a boat is just as good. As long as you feed them, they will stay with you.
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 Australian cruisers 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 there, just chilling, with the knowledge that after leaving this idyllic spot things would 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 popular stop over, and press on to Ninian Bay. This is one of those places that from the chart looks like great shelter but in reality was miserable. The bay is too shallow to tuck into therefore we had to anchor out in an exposed spot. The winds steadily increased to 25-30 knots during the night; at dawn we decided to run to Flinders Island for shelter. As we rounded Cape Melville the winds were over 30 knots – 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 was 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. We pressed on to Portland Roads, 3-days away, mainly to get mobile phone reception – stopping 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.
We 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 had never been too far from a coconut palm, however we were surprised to find that coconut palms are few and far between in tropical Australia – they are treated as ornamental trees; you find them in parks, resorts and occasionally in gardens. This we 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, none. Why? The answer may be two-fold. We came 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 horticultural skills. 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!
Anyway, to get to the point, 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 tens of meters deep, this 10km beach restored our 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 are situated hundreds of kilometres from the nearest road… We started our own crusade and in future when we saw a likely coconut washed up on the beach, we would replant it in a spot where it was likely to thrive!
Ever northward we sailed – our next destination, Cairncross Island. This was just a stop-over before the final stretch to round Cape York – the most northerly point of mainland Australia. With a good breeze behind us we set off for this next staging post – however when we arrived the anchorage looked uninviting. We decided to continue to Escape River and arrived just as it was getting dark – it was also 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, giving it a wide berth, 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! Keith 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. We couldn’t dive to inspect the damage as we were in murky crocodile-infested waters.
As you can guess, we didn’t stop here and headed out early the next morning to round Cape York. Although the region is mainly flat, we had seen relatively undisturbed eucalyptus-wooded savannahs and tropical rain forests. This is the most northerly point of Australia and we had sailed north for weeks past vast areas of unspoiled wilderness and could now turn west towards Darwin, a further 750nms away.
We rounded the Cape passing through a scattering of barren, rocky islands including Possession Island which is of historic significance. An obelisk has 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 have been numerous monuments erected on this site over the years, but all have been subject to vandalism… The most recent is 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 has a well-stocked general store, fuel is available – but no grog. In order to top up supplies we had to get to Bamaga a long 5km walk or hitch hike. Luckily it was easy to get a lift. Restrictions apply 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.