We packed up and were underway by about 9am, having rung the Rowes Bay Caravan Park and finding out they could fit us in – yay. We headed north along the Bruce Hwy, past quite a few mango plantations and also tomato crops. Apparently Bowen is the largest producer of tomatoes on the eastern seaboard. We stopped at a side of the road fruit and veg van to buy some extra fruit.

 It was only an hour drive to Homehill, a place I remember going to a couple of times to compete in Highland dancing competitions. The venue for them was just off the main Hwy and I recognised it as we drove past. I also remembered the big sugar cane mill there, right near the Burdekin River, and I remembered the long steel bridge over the river. The area is surrounded by sugar cane farms and we had to stop at a crossing as a sugar cane train went across with its load. It all brought back memories. Just 10 mins further north was Ayr, another place where I competed in dancing Eisteddfodds. It is slightly more built up than Homehill and the centre of town is nicely done with an attractive looking mall. We didn’t stop there, but just looked as we drove through. We continued on towards Townsville.

The maps showed a place named Alligator Creek about 28km south of Townsville. I recognised the name as somewhere our family used to go for day outings and I think sometimes with people from my Dad’s work. It is within the Bowling Green National Park (I don’t remember this name, so perhaps it’s been made a national park since i lived there). Reading up on it in the car (iPads are great devices:)) there is the day picnic area and overnight camping area near the creek, just 5km in from the Hwy, and this area is surrounded by a rural residential area. We decided to have a drive in there since I remembered it. We went to the day picnic area and went down to the creek – the kids loved the look of it and would have loved a swim if we’d had a bit more time. We did a short walk to a lookout area and saw how the creek had lots of great swimming holes. It was nice to see it again.

We went back out onto the hwy and continued along into town. I didn’t recognise the area we first came into as it was the south-east, where I didn’t go much as a child (we lived in the south-west). Once we got to the 3ways intersection of Bowen Rd, Ross River Rd and Charters Towers Rd, I recognised the area. Charters Towers Rd is where my Dad’s business, NBE, was located for most of the time we were up there. It is also where I road my bike along for many years to and from high school. Michael wanted to stop at a Supercheap Auto store which we had looked up as being on Charters Towers Rd. when we got there, I realised it was just across the road from my high school, St Margaret Mary’s. So after Michael finished at the store, I hoped across the road with my camera and took some photos of the school – some parts had changed and some hadn’t. While walking around there, I heard loud engine noises. I wondered what it was for a minute or two, and then remembered we had read that the V8 Supercars were in Townsville this weekend. The circuit was obviously close by. I rejoined the family in the car, and we continued out to Rowes Bay to settle in to the caravan park. Hannah and Bethany are always keen to get straight on their bikes once we stop somewhere. Sam goes on his bike a bit, but also likes to find a tree to climb if possible. Lauren will often just stretch her legs and explore the van park for a bit. Rowes Bay van park turned out to be quite nice with lots of trees around. It wasn’t long before the kids had found a large Moreton Bay Fig Tree to climb and swing on the hanging roots. 

After a cuppa and a short rest, I new I needed to go to the grocery store again (going through lots of fresh food). This time Hannah came with me. We went to Castletown shopping centre, which I remember was only a few years old before we left Townsville. We did our shopping and then I took a bit of a drive to an area close by (at Pimlico) where my ballet school was – Croft-Gilchrist School of Dance.  I had looked it up on Google Maps and found out it was still there. It hadn’t changed that much on the outside, but there was now a dancewear shop right next door in a house, and the car parking area was now sealed and had security gates on it. I took a photo and then Hannah and I drove back to the van park. Michael and Sam had been watching the end of the V8 Supercar race on the TV. They were then on dinner duty (another quick packet meal) while I sat down for a while – yay. I think we all did separate reading that night before bedtime.

We knew there wasn’t a lot to see in Bowen, but wanted some time to visit some of the beautiful beaches and just have a general look over the town. We also needed to catch up on lots of washing which we hadn’t done for about a week. So I started early with the washing at about 8am, which was just as well, because not long after there was a queue waiting for the washing machines. Michael spent some time trying to fix the small keyboard we had brought which wasn’t working (it was a very old one given to us by Lauren and Hannah’s piano teacher – she didn’t want it anymore). He had no luck in fixing it – will maybe try again later. But by 10am we needed to move to the other site – a bit of a pain but it wasn’t a full pack up to move about 20m down the lane.  We also wanted to try to book a place at Townsville, our next stop – had difficulty again. The one we were keen to go to (Rowes Bay Caravan Park) had a system where you couldn’t book ahead. You could only book on the day you were first going to stay there and could then stay as long a s you liked. So we wouldn’t know if we could in there until ringing up the next morning. We found an alternative (but less favorable one) and tentatively booked in there. The kids had been riding bikes and exploring the beach again. They also had a half hour on the go-karts offered for hire by the caravan park. We had lunch, brought in all our clean clothes, which were now dry, and headed off for a bit of an explore of Bowen and its beaches.

We decided to go to the beaches first while it was still in the warm part of the day (the south-easterly winds that we’d experienced on the yacht were still around and making it a bit cold at times). We went to Horseshoe Bay, where I remembered snorkelling as a child with my Dad. I recognised the beach and would have liked to have snorkelled there with the kids, but the SE winds were causing a lot of choppiness in the water and it would have been too dangerous to swim near the rocks where the reef was.  We drove the 2mins around to Grays Beach which was a more north-facing beach and it was certainly calmer. Lauren, Sam, Hannah and I did try snorkelling there, but the water was a bit murky (possibly from the swell) and it wasn’t the best reef to try to see. I’m sure any locals who might have seen us would have thought we were mad, as the water was quite cold. We dried off and put on our warmer clothes to go for a drive.

 Our first visit was to drive past the house where Michael’s brother Richard lived when he was a policeman posted to Bowen. We took a photo on our mobile phone and sent it to him. He said it hadn’t changed a bit. Then we drove up Flagstaff Hill which had 360 degree views over Bowen and the islands at the top of the Whitsundays. Then we drove along the foreshore area which apparently has been done up over the last few years. We didn’t get out as the kids were still cold from their swim and it was windy outside. We drove through the centre of town and saw where the set had been for the movie ‘Australia’ (with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman etc) which was filmed in Bowen during 2 months of 2007. Because of this movie fame, the water reservoir tank on the hill near the centre of town now has a sign on it which says ‘Bowenwood’. We explained to the kids about the movie and thought we might try to watch it that night (although not the younger 2 girls) – but a technical hitch got in the way of that idea – will have to save it for another time.

We then headed back to the caravan park – had warm showers – had a BBQ dinner and a few card games and off to bed.

We wanted to make the next stop somewhere we could stay for a couple of nights as we still felt like we needed some slower time. So we decided to head to Bowen and stay there for 2 nights, with a day in between to see some sights and relax and regroup.

It was only an hour and a half to Bowen and we started to ring the caravan parks on the way to book in. We soon found out it was going to be hard to get a powered site there. Our resources listed about 7 caravan parks and we went through ringing each one from most favoured to least. We ended up getting a spot in a van park down the list, but when we arrived, it really didn’t look like a very enticing place to stay for 2 nights. We decided we would ring back the van parks right on the beach and see if they had any unpowered sites where we were allowed to use our generator. The first one I rang back, I just thought I would check again for unpowered site vacancies and they had one this time – don’t know if the previous person wasn’t aware of it or not. We decided to take that for at least one night – it was only 2pm – so the kids could have a play on the beach. We got there and got set up and found out they had a vacancy for the following night at a different site. We decided to take that too.

While the kids spent time on the beach and riding their bikes around the van park, Michael and I sorted a few things in the van and I went with Sam to do some grocery shopping at the Centrepoint Plaza 5 mins down the road. We also posted birthday cards to Papa whose birthday was this Saturday. Today was Thursday and I had hoped to maybe do an express post envelope, but as we were not in the centre of town, we could only buy stamps at a newsagent and we had missed the 3pm cut off for that day – have to be a bit more organised in these smaller towns. I knew Papa wouldn’t mind though.

By the time I got back from shopping, it was time to cook dinner – but Lauren was doing dinner tonight – yay. It was a beef stroganoff from a quick meal packet. She did a good job and we all enjoyed it. We played cards that night before heading off to bed.

We were supposed to have one more full day on the boat today and then head back to Shute Harbour tomorrow. However, Michael spoke to me in the morning about how stressed he was feeling because of the strong winds we were getting and how much it rocked the boat around whenever we were outside a sheltered bay or inlet. The marine forecast for today was much the same, and the winds were to get even stronger tomorrow. He hadn’t sailed in such conditions before and was concerned for the children. I must admit, I didn’t like it much when we were in the exposed parts of the ocean. It had been lovely on that first day – the winds were 5-10 knots, but since then they had picked up to 15-20knots, and it wasn’t so pleasant. It made me think about people like the early explorers who sailed the oceans and were so much at the mercy of the wind and weather. It also made me realise sailing around the world solo, like Jessica Watson, was not for me. Apparently she was ‘knocked down’ several times. I’m not sure how much of a tilt our boat got to, but it was enough to make me quite nervous.
We discussed it with the kids and they understood that it was not going to be enjoyable to continue when Dad was stressed and we were nervous. We decided before leaving the shelter of Cid Harbour, we would go and have a snorkel at Denhams Beach while it was high tide. Hannah especially, was keen to try snorkelling. We all went over in the dinghy, and Lauren, Hannah and I went for a snorkel. We saw a bit of interesting coral, and Hannah did really well with picking up how to snorkel. I’m sure there were better areas for snorkelling, but we at least gave it a go.
We went back to the yacht and got ready to make the sail across the Whitsunday Passage back to Shute Harbour. We made sure everything was latched down. We decided just to motor across and not even put he sail up because of the winds. As soon as we got out of the shelter of the harbour, the boat definitely started to rock and roll. It took about 40mins to get across the passage into a more protected area again, and if I had had misgivings about finishing up early, they were gone after that 40mins – I really didn’t like how much we were rolling.
We’d radioed the guys at Whitsunday Rent-a-Yachts to let them know of our plans and they came out to meet us just as we came into Shute Harbour (as was their practice). They took us back to the berth. We had to do the reverse of our packing onto the boat 4 days earlier – everything into bags to go on trolleys back up the jetty and back to the caravan. Then sorting it all back into its places back in the van. We had decided we would just stay somewhere in Airlie Beach that night, so we stayed at a Big 4 caravan park, and the kids had a swim in the pool (even though it was freezing cold – southern kids!). Michael was able to de-stress for the rest of the day. It was strange how we all had that feeling of ‘ah, it’s nice to be home’, even though we were living in a caravan, and not our house. It’s all perspective. We all slept well that night and slept in the next morning:).

Another day like yesterday – challenging for sailing. We left Nara Inlet and hoped to be able to sail up to a place called Butterfly Bay at the top of Hook Island. It is supposed to have very good snorkelling there. However by sailing north, we were sailing in the same direction as the wind and swell and we were getting rocked around too much. We didn’t feel confident to continue in that direction, so headed back south towards a place called Cid Harbour on the NE side of Whitsunday Island . It is quite a protected harbour, especially from the strong S/SE winds we were getting. We pulled up here around lunchtime and the kids had a swim off the back of the boat. After lunch, Michael and Bethany had a bit of a nap while I took the older 3 kids in the dinghy over to the beach (Sawmill Beach) and had an explore on the rocks. Sam actually drove the dinghy as he had been practicing for the last couple of days. We then went in the dinghy to the next beach around the point (Denham Beach) and had another explore. We saw some loggerhead turtles surfacing to take a breath a few times. We also saw a group of flying fish jump out of the water right in front of the dinghy. The bay around Denham Beach had a lot more fringing reef in it and so we had to be careful we didn’t take the dinghy straight over some coral only a few centimeters under the water and damage the motor. It was bit of a maze, trying to dodge the coral and, at one point, we did go over some and the motor struck the edge. We had to manouvre off the coral without the motor and then reverse up. Sam did a great job staying cool through the whole episode. We then headed back to the yacht. Bethany had been disappointed she had had to have a nap while we were away, so Michael had said he would take her on an ‘adventure’. So following some afternoon tea, her and Michael headed off to Denhams Beach while the other kids and myself did some reading up on coral and reefs, and also read some more from The Story of Australia book. When Bethany came back with Michael, she was all excited to tell us about the little octopus she had seen in a pool of water on the beach. How exciting!
We sang some songs with the guitar that night and watched the sun set over the water to the west.

Today was a bit of a challenging day on the water. The winds and swell had come up overnight. We all woke quite early again. We planned to go over to Tongue Point and do the walk up to the lookout and then sail around the point and over to Whitehaven Beach for a swim.

We were in the dinghy and heading over to the point by around 8.00. There were already about 3 other dinghies on the shore and another large one followed soon after us. We had noticed there was a large tourist boat anchored in the bay after we had arrived. And this time of the morning was obviously the best time for doing this walk – and all the visitors were making the most of it. It was a shortish walk – only about 15mins to the lookout. And once again, a spectacular view out over the NE side of Whitsunday Island. You could actually do a walk down onto the southern most tip of Whitehaven Beach, which many of the tourists were doing, but we decided to go back to the yacht and commence our sail around. The dinghy trip was over pretty choppy waters and so was a lot bumpier than the previous day’s trip – a few of us ended up quite wet, so needed a change of clothes when we got back to the yacht.

We pulled up anchor and headed out around Tongue Point and along beside Whitehaven Beach. The swell was such that we were getting rolled around quite a lot. The wind direction was such that Whitehaven beach was exposed to a lot of wind and swell that day. Michael felt that trying to anchor and dinghy in to the beach would not be pleasant today, so we decided to go to a more protected area up around Hook Island, and come to Whitehaven another time. So we tacked a couple of times to turn around and head back the way we had come. It was a work out for Michael, Lauren and Sam. The sail back up the east side of Whitsunday Island was a bit hair-raising at times. The swell was such that the dinghy behind us was sometimes sitting at the height of the cockpit while on the crest of a wave. I was down below with the 2 younger girls for a while, but started to feel a bit seasick. I lay down on a bed with my eyes closed, but then they needed me up above for a while. I was needed to steer, with Lauren and Sam manning a rope on either side of the cockpit, so that Michael could go up front and try to release the headsail which had got stuck as they were trying to furl it in. I’d set the girls up to watch a movie on their iPads down below. I stayed up top after I’d finished helping out, as it was more likely to help relieve my seasickness than going back down below. Lauren grabbed my jacket for me and checked on the girls every now and then – thankfully they didn’t seem to be having any problem with seasickness. After about 15mins, I started to feel much better. Hannah and Beth eventually joined us all up in the cockpit for the last half hour or so of sailing before we reached our destination, which was Nara Inlet on Hook Island. We got to a fairly sheltered spot by about 12.30 and anchored there. We all heaved a sigh of relief to be out of the swell, and then we had some lunch. Bethany was saying she was too tired to eat, so she was sent to lie down – she promptly fell asleep, which she obviously needed. We decided we all could do with an afternoon rest, or at least quiet time, so that’s what happened. I must have slept for a couple of hours because it was after 3.00 when Michael finally woke me. No-one else had slept, but they’d watched movies and rested. 

We had some afternoon tea, and then Michael took the kids for a dinghy ride over to the beach we were anchored near. There was some coral reef near the edge which they explored for a bit (with their reef shoes on). I stayed on the boat and typed up some blog. When they got back to the boat, the kids had a bit more of a swim off the back of the boat, before having quick showers and into warm clothes. Then Hannah and Beth did some pages in their journal while Lauren and Sam did some blogging and checking emails. We were having a BBQ for dinner that night, so Michael started up the BarB on the back of the boat. I got the rest of dinner ready and then sat up the back watching the boats in the dusk for a while. We had dinner, cleaned up, read books and then everyone (except me) was in bed by 8pm and asleep soon after. Because I’d napped, I stayed up a bit longer dong some blogging and reading, but not too late.

Sam was the first one awake – at about 6am – he hadn’t slept well for the latter half of the night. The rest of us started to stir soon afterwards. We did our morning routine, did our ‘sched’ at 7.45 and then by about 8.15 we were in the dinghy ready to go onto South Molle Island to do a walk up to a lookout. We got onto the island, found the walking track and headed off. It was a 4km return trip. There were some sections like rainforest and some more open grass areas. There were some nice views along the way, and the view at the top was spectacular. We could look out either NW over the northern islands such as North Molle Island and Daydream Island and towards the mainland. Or we could walk 50m to another part of the lookout and look SE out over Whitsunday Island, Hamilton Island and so on. We had a snack and a drink up the top and then headed back down, which was quicker and easier. As we walked along the jetty back towards our dinghy, we saw some large fish (like angel fish) swimming just below us in the clear water.

We got back to the yacht and pulled up anchor and motored out of the bay, and then set sail to head east towards Whitsunday Island. We planned to go through the strait between Hook Island and Whitsunday Island and sail down to Tongue Bay on the east side of Whitsunday Island. From Tongue Island you can dinghy onto the point and walk up to a lookout which has a great view over the beautiful Whitehaven Beach. Michael, Sam and Lauren did all the sails. I did some steering for quite a while and took us thought he passage. It took about 3 hours to get to Tongue Bay. We arrived about 3pm and following some afternoon tea, we got in the dinghy to go to Tongue Point and do the walk. As we approached the shoreline, we realised it was low tide and there was coral reef for about 50m out from the sand to the waterline. We realised we would have to come back first thing tomorrow morning when it was high tide. So we headed back to the boat and Michael took the kids in to the sandy beach at the bottom of the bay for an explore and a swim. When they got back, he let Lauren and Sam have a bit of a motor around in the dinghy by themselves – Sam particularly loved the dinghy – even more than the yacht I think. Hannah and Beth had a bit more of a swim off the back of the boat. The water wasn’t quite warm enough for Michael and I to want to go in – maybe sometime in the middle of the day we will. 

It was soon time to shower off and have quiet time before dinner – a seafood paella. Michael said I seem to be trying lots of new recipes during our travels – perhaps the adventurous spirit has transferred to my cooking as well. Everyone was fairly tired, so it was off to bed reasonably early.

We packed up from the caravan park by 10am and went in to Airlie Beach. We were supposed to be at the Whitsunday Rent-a-Yachts place by 12 noon to start to load our gear on the boat and then have the 2hr briefing before heading out on our own. To fill in the time before 12noon we went to the beachside markets at Airlie Beach (which are only on a Sat, so it was good timing on this occasion). We also needed to find some sunglasses for Bethany, as we only found out just before leaving Canberra that hers were broken. We found some, and also bought some sunglass straps for everyone,  to hold sunglasses in place when leaning over the edges of boats.

At 11.30 we headed back to the van and drove to Shute Harbour, found the Rent-a-Yacht place and pulled up in their carpark. After checking in, we started loading the gear onto trolleys (which looked more like wheelbarrows) to wheel down the jetty to where our boat was waiting for us. There was lots of gear to load on – especially food – our family seems to go through lots of food in 5 days, and we didn’t want to have to come in to shore for food, unless absolutely necessary. I ended up having to load things up a bit faster than I wanted to – there seemed to be a bit of pressure to start the briefing by a certain time – I hoped that I had everything we needed packed, as I didn’t get to go through all the cupboards as thoroughly as I would have liked. Then there was trying to pack it all in its various places on the boat. I had leave that task halfway through so the ‘guide’ could start the briefing – he wanted to get through everything so we could be leaving Shute Harbour by 3.30. 

Michael, Lauren, Sam and I all sat in on the briefing which was done around the dining table of the boat. Hannah and Beth watched a movie on the iPad. The guy who did the briefing was named Ian and was British, and a very nice guy. The briefing started with showing us how to interpret the maps of the islands and the symbols and how to use the ‘100 Magic Miles’ book. This book gave detailed information about each of the areas of the islands and water depth, reefs and rocks to watch out for, the number of public moorings at each area, the etiquette around using moorings, and so on. It gave information on the best regions for snorkelling and where fishing is and isn’t allowed. He ran through tide tables and how this might affect when we go somewhere and how to think through tide times when we take the dinghy to shore to do a walk or something (if we go at high tide and go walking and come back at lower tide, we might have to pull the dinghy a long way back out to the waterline).  He went through how to do the twice daily ‘schedules’  at 7.45am and 3.45pm – we listen in the the 2way radio and when they call our boat (called ‘Out of the Blue’) we needed to speak to them to let them know where we were anchored that night and so on. We are allowed to miss 2 schedules in a row (we may be out in the dinghy a bit longer or something) but if we miss anymore than 2, they have to send someone looking for us (at our expense). He discussed capacity of fuel and water (plenty of fuel, but we had to be sparing with our water). Then he did a walk through the boat. We were shown how to operate the toilets and how we had to switch the valve over to the holding tank at night once we were anchored (so effluent doesn’t go into the water in the areas where most people swim). It can be switched back once we are sailing at sea. There was the water pump for the showers. Ian ran through all the switches on the switch board and when each one might be needed. We learnt where all the fire extinguishers were, and the flares and EWIS system. Then we went up into the cockpit area – there were storage areas which had the life jackets, emergency drinking water etc. we learnt how to start the motor, and the gears for the throttle etc. We learnt about the instruments at the helm – the depth sonar, the speedometer etc. We ran through how to start the motor on the dinghy and work the lines etc. Then it was time to be underway, so we could learn about the sails out at sea. Ian hooked up a 2nd dinghy and then stayed on board while we motored out of Shute Harbour. He ran through with us how to hoist the sails, use the winches etc, and then ran us through some tacks and jibes. Michael, Lauren and Sam did all of those, while I was watching the 2 younger girls (who always have their life jackets on when up on deck). That was the only part I really missed listening to properly, but figured those 3 ‘sailors’ could be in charge of those duties anyway. Ian was happy we knew what we were doing, so hoped in the 2nd dinghy and waved us off as he headed back to the harbour. We were on our own then in the wide blue sea!

We had discussed with Ian just sailing to a bay in South Molle Island for the first night – that was only half an hour sail away. We got there OK and dropped anchor. Sam was keen to try out the dinghy, so Michael took the kids in the dinghy over to the island for a quick look around while I started on dinner. The kids also had a quick swim off the back of the boat while we were anchored. There is a fresh water shower head on deck at the back of the boat, which has hot and cold water, so they used this to rinse off before getting changed (saves on water). We sat below to have dinner, and then sat up on deck to have dessert while watching the stars. Then it was bed time routine for younger ones, blog writing or reading etc for older ones. And being rocked off to sleep for everyone.