The Boat Trip - at last

Camped at Smalleys Beach at Seaforth and then finally arrived at Dad & Caroliines place Zamia Ridge, Seaforth, Mackay, Qld.

Getting ready to head up to Airlie to begin our week of sailing. So much grog to buy, glad we had the ute empty and ready. Filled it completely with grog and food. Girls shopped for groceries ($1100) and the boys did the boat briefing.aboard Sea Window and Fusion Magic.( More realistically known as seamen on the windows and confusion tragic)   And then we were off with our sailing buddy, Peter. Our first stop was Daydream Island to unload our buddy and then over to Cid Harbour for the night whilst we waited for Sea Window to collect Mooose & Herclouise ( who missed their plane) from Hamilton Island.

Second night spent at Cid harbour- Saw Mill Bay,  but this time we were all together. Party time ! Took a great walk over the hill to dugong beach which was beautiful and scenic with all the hoop pines on the side of the cliff. Next day sailed over to Hook Island but it was very windy and the "bullets" gave us a restless night with all the buffetting.! Nice and sunny next day as we headed over to Blue Pearl Bay on Hayman Island. Great snorkelling with plenty of fish - awesome . A walk to the top of the island and overlooking the deserted Hayman Island Resort . Forgot my shoes, so lovely Deb shared hers with me.  A lot of other boats mooring here but we held our ground (?) and managed to secure a spot for the night. The Solway Lass moored near us (with not a white person onboard- all Jamacan- and no one could speak english) and they were having a ball climbing the rigging and jumping from the top on ropes. Frank and Glen decided to have a go too-talked them into-  it no mean feat in itself -  what a sight, Frank's fluro limbs flying through the air!

Our turn to cook dinner - Atlantic Salmon ( not caught locally, obviously !) and then our washing up party - too much fun!!

Next day we sailed to Butterfly Bay on Hook Island - more snorkelling but not as good. Decided to go back to Stonehaven and lost Brett overboard on the way! Good time to practise our man overboard drill! Got to 9.2 knots sailing speed - pretty good for us amateurs. Back to Cid Harbour via Black Island. This is where Libby, Top Shelf Sondra, Brett and I managed to circumnavigate the whole island. Very good adventure indeed. Next day over to Hamilton Island to drop everyone back at the airport and motor back to Airlie following Sea Window skippered by the Charter Yatchs crew.

Theresa Creek Dam - Clermont

A very big dam fed by Theresa Creek (of course) - Some spectacular views.    

So many redclaw, some of the hardened fishermen were catching up to 200 per day! So we had redclaw in tomato chutney with olives, redclaw in light batter, redclaw in honey and soy ( not good) redclaw in cheese sauce. Had enough redclaw!

Met some lovely people ( more Bobs) had a sing around the campfire with most of the people in the park for a mothers day get together - have now been promised free accomodation forever due to John's expertise in the guitar field. Spent 5 days here.

Barcaldine,Alpha,Clermont

Leaving Longreach after a great free camp headed along to Barcaldine - 5 pubs in the main st of town  - The Tree of Knowledge - so called as it was the founding place of the ALP due to the fact it was the headquarters of the 1891 shearers strike! They had all met under this tree. An amazing structure surrounds the now dead tree ( it was poisoned) which apparently cost $5 million !!! Looks like a lot of timber chimes.

On to Alpha a mining town, now and set to be very big in the future with Rio Tinto. Came the back way along a 4wd only track ( most definetly 4wd only) and reached Clermont.

Longreach

Did the touristy thing - had a river cat ride up and down the Thompson Waterhole which is actually part of the Thompson River. Found an amazing place that we weren't allowed to camp on ( but we asked the policeman and he said no one takes notice of the signs anyway) so much cooler in the shade of the Coolibah trees.

Rode our bikes into town to see the Stockmans Hall of Fame. Decided not to visit the Qantas hangar as we saw heaps of that in Winton.Took the tinnie out for a little ride up and down the waterhole up to the weir.  Caught yabbies ( blue claw) and had them in green thai curry.

Did some lazing in the water and talked to both our beautiful daughters whom we miss so much.

Jundah, Stonehedge, Winton

We decided not to travel on the dirt road to Winton as the rains had knocked it around and we had been told it was pretty rough and as usual not enough time. Everything was shut because of the easter long break so scooted through Longreach ( back to that later) and off to Winton. An amazing museum and info centre dedicated to Waltzing Matilda and the beginings of Quantas - definetly one of the best displays we have seen yet - soo much to see and all really well presented. It took all afternoon to see only part of what they had there,  very enjoyable.

Off to Lark Quarry the next morning to see the only found fossil remains of a Dinosaur stampede. Amazing and spooky as we were looking at footprints of animals from over  95 million years ago!!!

On the way back to Winton stayed at a Sation called Carisbrooke. This property is owned by the Phillott family and are related to me as my grandmother was a Phillott. Charles ( they are all Charles) and Penny were lovely to meet and I wished we could have spent more time with them. They have station stays including camping or 5 star cabins and houses with everything supplied. This is there main source of income as they had to get rid of most of their cattle and sheep due to the drought. The place is lush and green - so hard to imagine in drought.

Windorah- Cooper Creek

John played at Windorah Western Star Hotel on Sat night and it ended up being a great night. The next day they had raft races and a family fun day at the creek so we headed off there to stay for a few days. The races were great to watch and they had all sorts of novely events all day long too. Wheelchair races in the sand, woolsack races with four people in each sack, and heaps more.

 Great day except for all the dead fish due to the lack of oxygen in the river as it had started to silt up. So many yellowbelly fingerlings and even larger fish floating around the surface - horrible to watch but part of nature I suppose. Caught lots of yabbies and had them for dinner - yumm. 

Quilpie - Lake Hadraham

                                                                                                                                                                             Found a great spot just a few kms east of Quilpie and stayed there a few days on the side of the lake.

Very green and of course the lake is full after all the rain. Lots of eagles nests around the lake,  very entertaining to watch them soaring around us.


There were also lots of beautiful white lillies all around the lake too.





Beautiful sunny days and coolish nights - no fish in this lake either .