17/19/2019: Sydney. We made it!

Well we actually arrived into Sydney Harbour at 11pm on Tuesday night and headed for the closest anchorage (Manly) and a good night's sleep. The trip down was reasonable, a few hours motoring to start with and then sailing the rest of the way.

We spent the day in and around Manly yestersay as our marina berth in downtown Sydney wasn't booked until today and so at 9am this morning we pulled up the anchor to head deeper into the harbour, chased by a P&O cruise ship (we gave way to it!) before rounding a headland and having our first view of the opera house and bridge! Wow! What a perfect end to an incredible trip, to see two such iconic structures and to sail underneath one of them! We made it, yeah!!

We're now in the CYCA Marina, home of the Sydney to Hobart rally, and will spend four days here exploring and relaxing. Bring it on!

11th October 2019, Coffs Harbour, NSW

Well, we finally escaped from Queensland and have crossed the state border into New South Wales. After an overnight trip, more whale sightings (they literally are everywhere!) and a close shave with a fishing trawler, we arrived in Coffs Harbour at 2pm on Monday, settled ourselves into our berth (no help available as it was a public holiday out here for labour day) and had a relaxing afternoon doing nothing much before an early night to catch up on missed sleep.

On Tuesday, it was a very different story. We had been boat bound for three days and couldn't wait to stretch our legs again. We found a walk that wound its way through the forest on either side of Coffs Creek, through the town and back to the marina, taking in the botanical gardens along the way. 16 kilometers later, we were back on board and our legs were pretty tired!

Wednesday had us cleaning up and making preparations to have friends made on the rally for lunch. It turned into a very long lunch with them not leaving until 8pm but we had a lovely time relating stories from the time in French Polynesia.

On Thursday we hired a car to drive up into the mountains and see some of the very picturesque scenery in the Dorrigo National Park. The mountains here are even closer to the coast than in Queensland and the aptly named 'Waterfall Way' soon had us up on the plateau some 725metres above sea level. It was a steep and twisty climb, very dramatic with glimpses of the coast through the towering eucalyptus, red cedars and tallowwood trees.

In years gone by, and we're talking millions of years ago, this former volcanic area (Mount Ebor was active for a million years, spewing lava which has made this such a fertile area) was covered in trees but the arrival of the European settlers in the mid-eighteen hundreds saw them felling the red cedar trees for timber and creating meadows for grazing cattle. It became a big butter area. The plateau is still farmed today and presents a bucolic scene.

Arriving at the rainforest discovery centre, and having recovered from our exertions of Tuesday, we hiked down to some waterfalls on the wonderfully named 'Wonga Walk'! 3.5 kilometres down and the same back up again. We deserved our lunch!

It's a shame that there has been so little rainfall for several months or the flow would have been so spectacular.  Even so, we were thrilled to see them and even managed to get behind one of them, the Crystal Falls.

As we walk through the rainforests here, (yes, they are rainforests, even though there isn't much rain!) one thing that has really become evident is that the birdsong is SO different from anything we have been used to during our travels. One bird in particular, an Eastern Whipbird is very noisy, and a persistent singer with a very distinctive 'whipcrack' call. The Kookaburra calls are also very distinctive, and the longer we are here, the more familiar they are becoming to us. We recorded it's call but the sound byte is copyright protected so we can't add the video onto our blog!

As we drove from Dorrigo through Ulong and on towards Coramba and Karangi, (lovely sounding names for towns here!) the tarmac roads just ended and we found ourselves on dirt highways for approximately 30km. Not the most comfortable ride, but what choice did we have? The car came back absolutely covered in dust, and if it hadn't rained last night we would have had to have stopped into a carwash on our way to return the vehicle! Even so the rental company looked at us rather askance when we handed back the keys.

Today we took a walk to the island next to the marina, Muttonbird Island, part of the Solitary Islands Marine Park and with views back down over the marina itself.

It is named after the migratory marine birds (short-tailed shearwaters) that nest there in burrows that they make on the hillside to protect their eggs and young. There were no birds in evidence as it's not the nesting season at the moment.

It's cold here today too, the southerlies have come back again bringing the Antarctic winds howling up the coast, so we have got extra bedding to sleep under at night, plus sweatshirts to keep us warm during the day

We have decided to stay a few days longer in Coffs and wait for the next batch of northerly winds to blow us down the coast to Sydney. According to the forecasts, we will have favourable winds to leave here on Monday, sail the remaining 240 nautical miles in one go, and arrive in Sydney Harbour on Tuesday evening. We're really looking forward to sailing Tumi under the Harbour Bridge, that will be another tick in the box and a fitting finale to what has been an incredible trip!

5/10/2019: Goodbye Sunsine Coast, hello Gold Coast!

Yes we've made it another 100 miles south having left Mooloolaba at high water yesterday and arrived at Southport on the Gold Coast at 2am this morning. We managed to sail all but the last 3 hours when the wind completely died - not what was forecast but when are they ever accurate?!! - but the whale activity more than made up for that. They were everywhere, waterspouts blowing, tails and fins slapping and dramatic leaps fully out of the water, as they courted in the shallow waters off Moreton and North Stradbroke Islands. We tried to get photographs, the best of them shown below, but it's tricky to know when and where they will next breach and so we have to rely on the wider-lensed phone camera without zooming in. Hey ho, we have the mental images firmly imprinted on our brains. When darkness fell we kept our fingers crossed we didn't run into a sleeping whale. In that regard having the engine on for a few hours wasn't a bad thing as they could at least hear us coming!

The Gold Coast is the part of Queensland bordering New South Wales (yes, we're nearly there!) with great surfing beaches backed by high rise apartments, eateries, clubs and theme parks.  The anchorage area is busy and criss-crossed by lots of people enjoying their weekend afloat on small boats and jet skis. Throw in the whale-watching tour boats and transiting superyachts coming into and out of the nearby Palazzo Versace Marina, then the swell is a nuisance slapping against our stern, but it's lovely to see people making the most of the ocean and it will be like a millpond again tonight.

While it's not really our scene, over 4 million people visit each year so I don't think we will be missed! Inland is reputedly very attractive with national parks offering hiking, waterfalls and great views but having thoroughly explored the hinterland of Mooloolaba we don't feel the need to repeat it here .... it can't be that different, can it?!

One of the main reasons we are making our stay here very short is the weather: we utilised a short northerly weather window to get here yesterday and tomorrow another one opens for twenty four hours which will enable us to reach Coffs Harbour in NSW before the next band of strong southerlies kick in. Everyone keeps telling us that the winds this year aren't typical ... just our luck! - so we will up anchor around midday tomorrow and sail overnight the 150 miles to Coffs Harbour.  It got quite chilly last night on our way here but needs must!!

PS: it turns out Paul did capture a few good shots after all! Much better detail and focus!!

2/10/2019: Sunshine Coast Hinterland

We've hired a car this week to undertake a more thorough exploration of the beautiful countryside inland from the Sunshine Coast.

Monday morning dawned with clear blue skies and after a leisurely start we ventured up to Maleny and Gardeners Falls before heading over to a local state park with views out over the Glasshouse Mountains on the lookout for critters. One python (asleep under a rock next to the path) and several pademelons (small wallabies) later we headed deeper into the countryside along an unmade road into the Obi Obi Valley. Stunning, including the gradients of the roads!

It's probably fair to say that that description Sunshine Coast has been a bit misleading since late Monday night when we had two or three hours of heavy rain, loud enough bouncing on Tumi's coach roof to wake us up! It's a good job it did as we needed to reposition the dinghy on its davits, tilting it to let the rain drain out ... Paul's  job just before midnight and he got drenched! Given over 100mm fell in a few hours, it was fortunate he braved the weather....

The weather system hadn't cleared through by Tuesday morning and we experienced a cool, cloudy, windy day with frequent downpours. A quick visit to the local botanic gardens was about all we managed between the showers but at least we weren't confined on board all day. The sculptures in their setting of native bushland were actually very attractive ... inspiration for our garden when we get home, ha ha!

This morning dawned dry, not quite the warm temperatures and blue skies of the weekend but being the intrepid adventurers that we are we headed off into the mountains to see some waterfalls and do a bit of bushwalking. Our first stop, Kondalilla Falls near Montville were beautiful, set a few kilometers into the rainforest and with a flow given the recent rain but nothing like they must be in the wet season. Over eighty metres high, we descended through the forest to the base of the falls before climbing back out again!

Our next stop was at the Mapleton Falls National Park where we enjoyed a short walk through the forest and the views of the Mary River Valley but had to suffice ourselves with only a view of the falls from a viewpoint. On the upside the clouds cleared and we returned to clear blue skies again!

And then we took the scenic route home! A great day in lovely countryside off the beaten track.

29th September 2019, Brisbane

Last night was the finale for the Brisbane festival, culminating in a flypast by the Australian Air Force, first in a jet bomber, then by a fighter jet. The latter flew in low and fast, skimming the tops of the bridges, passing over the city twice, moving in different directions.

We managed to capture this jet several times in a second and put them together into a composite picture, looking as though a flight of aircraft was passing overhead. The pressure from the engines was immense, almost crushing our chests (or so it felt to us!).

Then came the fireworks. The display was launched from several barges that had been moored in the middle of the river, and from the roofs of several of the taller skyscraper buildings around the city. By sheer fluke, our hotel was ideally positioned to take advantage of three of the barges, plus our room on the eighteenth floor gave us a spectacular view.

The show went on for half an hour, and was absolutely amazing to watch.

This morning, we woke to another cloudless day, and booked ourselves onto a river cruise. Yes, we have to keep going on boats, even in cities! Anyway, we got to see Brisbane from a different viewpoint, and having walked most of the downtown city, the river trip seemed to put it all into perspective for us. 

So much of the city is focussed on the river, and while much of the industry has moved down river to the mouth of the Brisbane at Moreton Bay, myriad apartment blocks have sprung up on the once industrial land and old warehouses converted into luxury homes. Apparently these waterfront apartments sell in the millions of Australian dollars, demonstrating the wealth of the city.

We even managed to find the Customs House that we had missed when we were exploring on foot, hailing from the days when the riverbank was lined with wharves and sailing ships, transporting wool, coal and other cargoes around the country and the world.

After the river trip, we walked back across the footbridge from the South Bank through the business district and had some lunch overlooking the passers-by, listening to the street performers. Then it was back up the hill to the bus station for our Greyhound bus home. All in all, it has been a very enjoyable weekend!