Monday June 18^th, 2018

Hello all Lisanne friends,

We left Hamilton Island and sailed north. It was nice with a couple of quiet days after all the partying with the OWR gang. First stop was Magnetic Island which is a really nice island just outside Townsville. We went on a walk up to the “Fort” , an old defence building from WW2. Established to protect the entrance into Townsville where a big fleet was based at the time. The gun towers and some of the buildings were still intact. We met a couple of cute Koalas up there. They are very sleepy during the day but looked curiously at us after a while. We also took a bus ride around the island and had a very tasty pizza at Mama Rosa in Penguin Bay.

Next stop was Orpheus Island, just at the entrance to Hitchinbrook Channel, where we got a safe mooring buoy for the night. We woke up at 05.30 to catch the high tide at the entrance to the channel. We entered 30 min before HT with only 0.8 m under the keel, a bit nerve-wrecking, but we got in safely. The channel is mainly through a mangrove forest. We took the dinghy to a couple of the narrow side creeks in search of crocodiles but without success. Later we were told that we shouldn´t go in the dinghy as the salt water crocodiles “salties” can get up to 6-7 m and easily turn the dinghy around.

In the evening we stopped at Dunk Island where we spent a day exploring the deserted resort and hiked up to the top of Mt Kootaloo.

We sailed on to Cairns the next day and tied up in Marlin Marina. Cairns is a great place but a typical holiday town. Bars, restaurants, boutiques, beach-shops and a casino of course. As we always have wanted to dive on the Great Barrier Reef we booked a dive trip the next day and went out with a dive boat. We did three great dives on a reef called Flynns where we saw a whale, some reef sharks, turtles and an abundance of beautiful fishes and coral.

We also went on the scenic railway to Kuranda, a historic town from the gold rush. On the way back we took  the Skyrail, a cable car that goes through the rainforest, just over the treetops.

After a visit to Port Douglas, a nice town just north of Cairns it was time to set sail again and steer further north.

      Magnetic Island, the “Fort”                                                                         Wake up !

      Hinchinbrook channel.                                                                                    Crocs ???

     Dunk Island.                                                                                                       Scenic Railway to Kuranda.

     Kuranda hotel from the goldrush.                                                                 Over the treetops of the rainforest

      Nice with a coffee and “kanelbulle”.                                                            Stocking up on Midsummer goodies !