We have caught up with cleaning and sourcing spares and having some repairs carried out to the spray hood and bimini.

Today the rigger came and we need two new shrouds (aghh !) and some other works so he is going to be busy on the boat for a few days.

Mackay

Mackay’s main industry is coal mining, exporting 100million ton of coal each year mainly by ship. The day we sailed into the harbour there were 69 tankers anchored in the bay waiting to be loaded.

There are a lot of workers employed at the mines and the pay is very attractive, £100,000 per year for a twenty year old minor working on the surface.

Many of the workers are flown in and out for their shifts, 4 days off, 4 days on.

The town has developed as a result of the expanding mining industry, but it is not very pretty, there is a good shopping mall for provisions but not much else !

The marina has several nice bars and restaurants including a Thai – yum yum.

It is a strange stop over as many of the ralliers have flown off to explore Sydney and many have had their yachts lifted out for mid rally maintenance, so everyone is busy ‘doing their own thing’.

On Tour

We took the Eungella tour out into the mountains on Saturday to see the rest of Mackay.

The tour included breakfast of Billy Tea and Damper followed by a walk to a lovely waterfall, then and a barbeque lunch at the ‘Finch Hatton Hilton’.

This is the Hilton below - it consisted of a tin roof, log fire, barbeque and sink with a few picnic tables, in a delightful setting in the middle of the forest.

The Billy tea was made by heating up tin cans of water and tea leaves over the open fire. Served complete with tea leaves, it had a smoky flavour from hanging over the smoking fire ! The Damper was bread toasted on the barby with butter and treacle, molasses, syrup or honey.

We saw the lush sugar cane fields being harvested and the sugar mills in operation, we had great views of the Pioneer Valley and late afternoon we arrived at Broken River ready to spot the Platypus coming out to feed. Mark & Tony look philosophical at the end of the tour.

On the way home we stopped at the Pinnacle Pub, a typical Australian Pub, and enjoyed a pint of XXXX Gold and one of their famous pies.

Back at the marina it was straight into the Yacht Club for a few more beers and to listen to the live band ‘Hot,Hot,Hot’ and watch the Australian general election results coming through on TV.

Tomorrow we are flying to Sydney to meet up with Rob & Julie. We are staying with Kathy & Martin, Julie’s brother, for a week and then the six of us are flying back to ‘Blue Magic’ to cruise the Whitsunday islands for a week.

We are so looking forward to seeing Sydney after hearing all about it from Katie.