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| We made it, Great Barrier Reef. |
While we were camped at Trinity Beach right on the beach by the river mouth, we had a relaxing couple of days with no driving, James went kayaking and found some big Black lip Oysters for dinner.
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| The 'foot-long' black lip oysters. |
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| Fresh Trinity Beach coconuts for breakfast. |
We looked up options to go out to the reef, the cheapest was over $100, so I looked on gumtree and found one for free. It was on an old fibreglass Haines Hunter Trimaran, that packs up onto a trailer, the deal is simply help him set it up and sail it because it's hard to do it solo. Ash was the boat owner he works as a Botanist, and he is a marine biologist and fanatic shell collector, which is why he goes to the reef, to collect amazing shells to add to his extensive collection, it's very impressive.
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| Ready to launch early in the morning |
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We were at the boat ramp early, the boat went together easy and we headed out to sea, nothing in sight but there's supposed to be a reef beyond the horizon, as soon as we got past our camp at the river mouth we hoisted the sails, and dropped the lures in to try catch some Mackerel. It was slow sailing due to low wind but that meant the water was calm and good to go out to the reef in our little yacht, and it was perfect trolling speed.
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| Mackaral |
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| Sailing directly east into the sunrise |
We anchored in amongst the reef, amazing blue water and white sand, Ash was straight in the water and off snorkeling for shells and left us to it. It was a lot colder than I expected, but the all the coral and looking in the caves for painted crays soon took my mind off that. Found a few crays that looked big but they got away, next time I'll know what to do. We moved over to a sand key island that was out of the water at low tide and found some awesome shells, then shifted to a deeper bit to try find some more crays, no luck. It was getting late so we packed up and followed the compass back towards land, we couldn't see it for a while but it's there somewhere, west. we dropped the lures in once we were cl ear of the reef and hooked a Mackerel, and a Bonito Tuna, fish for tea tonight, yum.
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| The view from Grandad Vincents place ontop of the mountain. |
James met a guy named John at the Bottle O and he invited us up mountain, to his cottage. It's was a awesome place, off the grid, tank water, gas fridge and a generator for everything else. We rolled our swags out in the front deck and made our selves at home. There was a nice creek nearby, had a fire and started the generator just to turn the stereo on. John never showed up but that was OK, we met Vince, his 86yr old grandad who said it was OK to stay, he owned the land 270acres of rain forest backing onto a national park, invited us up to his house on top of the mountain to check out the amazing view.
We had to unpack the truck to go get the tyre replaced which ended up taking all day doing other things in town like dropping battery at auto sparky to get it tested, and I found a whole bunch of Bananas!
James stayed in Kuranda for the day exploring on foot, and ended up walking 25km back to camp because I took so long in town.
Back up the mountain range to our camp, oh yea if you turn the generator on, the gas on and the water on it has a hot shower, first one in along time. We chilled out there fir the next few days, repacked the truck, buckled my bunch of bananas into the back seat and got ready to go down to Townsville to see Jame's Aunty and mum.
Opposite ends of the earth. Swimming & sailing over ocean horizons to rainforest's mountains & rocky creeks what a week. And Vince said come back and stay anytime.
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| Our camp up the mountain at Clohsey River. |
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15:56
Lance Dean
