Heading South

Scott and Ole having to face the grim reality of phone plans

We're halfway home and still waiting for canoes to come paddling out to trade with us. It didn't happen in Cairns, Makay or the Whitsundays, sadly enough. We've joined the Christmas Convoy of yachts heading South, battling Southerlies and gathering together to compare stories on windswept beaches.

Basketball boy, playing with Seth and Finn in Louisiades


We've both been looking into work options and getting the last term's school work done in preparation for our return to Yamba and the very necessary gathering of family finances. Dull, but inevitable. The islands of the Queensland coast are rather bleak and dry; we found coconuts on Middle Percy but they were not sweet or tasty. We had fun updating our sign in the famous A-frame and walked up the dusty hill to catch the breeze at the top. Finn has a new pair of runners and so is keen to try them out on long walks so we've been able to bushwalk on Whitsunday Island, Brampton & Percy, so long as there is cake or chocolate to tempt Finn to the top.....

Seth having fun our last day in the Louisiades




Hope you enjoyed the wish list of our last blog - and perhaps it may have inspired you to start planning to visit some of our hot spots. It's hard to know what to do with a travel blog when the travel is (nearly) over. I said to Scott that I might use this blog as my own personal forum for my meanderings, fascinating you all for the months to come; he rolled his eyes and muttered something. So perhaps I might have to have a rethink.  

Koala having a doze, Magnetic Island

Comments

  1. Well, there's always a book! And the "after dinner conference speaker circuit". Welcome to cold wet wintry NSW! Remember, reality only lasts till the confers are full and you can take off again! We'll catch up soon. Regards Michelle and James

    ReplyDelete

  2. Enjoyed reading your blog and your experience came alive with the wonderful photos too. Keep the blog idea going, don't worry about the eye rolling.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

More raving about PNG

Image
I am starting to write this sitting in an anchorage in the Duke of York islands near Rabaul in a small bay surrounded by villages. There are a few canoes of kids hanging around the boat and the morning has been the usual stream of trading – today for oranges, cooking bananas, shells, coconuts, papaya and green beans. 
Scott and Finn went off in a local boat to see some Japanese bombs left over from WWII. This whole region is full of sunken wrecks and jungle-hidden relics from the last two wars. Poor Papua New Guinea was really hit hard. On this island, the locals had to go and hide out the years of WWII in caves, hiding their babies and disguising the smoke from their fires as best they could. If the Japanese saw the smoke, they would throw a grenade. It seems that when the Japanese eventually beat a retreat they jettisoned their planes and tanks and left them to become new reefs and for people like us to snorkel on. This week alone we have dived on two tanks, several boats and a plan…
Keep reading

Plodding through Papua

Image
A brief internet interlude in the town of Manokwari, at the top of the Cenderawasih Bay in Papua, before we are out of range again - so a quick hello to all our blog friends. Hmm, what to say about Papua? Well, it is not the kind of cruising ground that makes you want to buy a boat and head off into the blue. Coming here as a land-based tourist would probably be quite different, with the few people that come here mainly taking dive tours with everything organised for them. Coming here on our own boat brings some administrative challenges and we haven't felt comfortable to leave the boat unattended so that limits how much we are able to see. Papua certainly has a wealth of beautiful islands and the interior sounds fantastic and untouched by the Western world, but if it doesn't come with a good anchorage, we can't see it! We are still heading East and are optomistic that PNG should be far more fun than Moluku and Papua have thus far been. 

Papua, as you will know, has seen it…
Keep reading

The full story on Ninigo

Image
A few weeks since we were last able to get internet access but here we are in lovely Kavieng, a town on the tip of New Ireland in PNG. More of that later – first, we must tell you that we have found our favourite place on earth – Ninigo! We went to the Ninigo island group straight from Jayapura, sailing 225 miles North East. Red Boomer were already there and came out at dawn to guide us over the reef into the lagoon. The water was crystal clear and turquoise, but that was only the start of Ninigo's charms. We anchored off the island of Mal and were greeted a while later by a gentleman named Thomas and his son Richard, who brought us fresh coconuts and the offer of any assistance we might need. Over the coming days, we spent a great deal of time with Thomas and his family and through him were introduced to the rest of the island. Mal was 'owned' by the Germans between the wars and was a coconut plantation. Coconuts still provide a source of income and food for the islanders…
Keep reading