Islands Galore

Hamilton Island

Once anchored up we hop into the tinny and decide to head over to Hamilton Island.  It is only a 30-minute ride over, the water a bit rougher when you are in the tinny, but also makes it an exhilarating tinny ride across the passage.  There are a number of huge boats, car ferries and tourist boats motoring around and moored in and out of the marina.

Hamilton Island Marina

Andrew dreaming about his next boat

 We head into the Hamilton Island Marina and wow, we think the rich and famous must live here and are glad we have not motored Mingo in.  Every boat in this marina must be in the millions of dollars.    The Hamilton Yacht race being on last week must have had some of the super yachts in too.  There are some nice looking boats here. Andrew is dreaming again....  Wefind a spot to tie the tinny up and have bought our bags of rubbish to land to throw out… A real good look!!! Time to have a walk around the marina and are pleased to find toilets and showers that are unlocked and free to use.  We know where we will be tomorrow afternoon.    We walk through the marina and have a look at all the yachts, which you can actually rent, and use around the Whitsundays, we go and enquire on doing this and pick up a brochure.

Chris in Buggy on Hamilton

Andrew in buggy on Hamilton

The traffic on Hamilton Island consists of mainly golf buggies, there are hundreds zooming around the island and jeez there are some lead foot people around (all fun).  We decide that we would like to have a look around the island in full, so after a walk and coffee at the bakery we hire a buggy for $60 for half the day and now its our time to be zipping about.  I think we covered every possible road around the island and walked around each hotel to have a nosey around.  There are some very nice ones and all seem open for anyone to use the facilities, including pools. 

Kookaburras on the street signs

We are both very surprised at how many buildings there are on the island, there are a lot of apartments and houses scattered around, all with fantastic views, it really is very built up.  Wonder if this is why the other islands around have failed as Hamilton has everything you need and must be a first call for all tourists, especially as its so close to Whitehaven Beach and has its own airstrip and marina.  As we are motoring around we notice two Kookaburras sitting on the street signs. 

Christie with 2 of the Cockatoo's

We then decide to go and have a beer and some potato wedges at the Tavern.  Suddenly we are inundated with Cockatoos, we must have had at least 7 on our table at one stage.  Christie was on the phone to family and Andrew finding it quite funny feeding the birds that are now not leaving Christie alone as the wedges are sitting in front of her.   Their beaks are very large when they are only inches from your nose.  

Andrew encouraging the Cockatoo's

Back to Mingo late afternoon and Andrew puts his lines out.  Oooh excitement as he gets a big bite and pulls in a lovely large looking mackerel.  It has managed to get a feed of both lines and is tangled up in them.  As Andrew is pulling it in it chomps through the line and whoosh back into the deep blue.  Damn it, that would have been a nice feed.  About 30 minutes later and Andrew is out the back slowly pulling his line in, telling Christie to get the net, ‘this ones a whooper”, he tells Christie.  The line is tight and the rod bent over as he slowly reels this large fish in.  Christie standing with torch lighting up the water and net to the ready, when all of a sudden, this so called mighty fish comes out of the water and is a huge clump of coral.  We had tears in our eyes with so much laughter.

Motoring through Gulnare Inlet

Gulnare Inlet

The next morning we go for a ride through the mangroves and pine trees throughout Gulnare Inlet. It has a very Canadian feel about it in here and goes for miles.  You could get lost pretty easily as there are a lot of turnoffs you can take in the mangroves and loose your way.  Have to be careful also as the tide is going out and we don’t want to get stuck at low tide having to pull the tinny back. 

View from Hamilton Island into the coral reef

So after an hour and a half putting along with the lure out the back and no catch we head back to Mingo and load the tinny with toiletries and washing and head back over to Hamilton Island.  It’s pretty choppy out today and we get soaked from the wash heading over there, nice way to stay cool.

Have a lovely hot shower and spend another couple of hours on the island whilst our washing is in the machines.  Ahh everything all fresh and clean again.

Plum Pudding Island

Heading back to Mingo, we go over and have a look around Dent Island, Henning Island and Plum Pudding Island.   Once again, great snorkeling and diving sights around here.

Back to Mingo in the afternoon and Andrew watched a DVD whilst Christie sat out the back reading.  We are here now until the winds drop a little.

Dark outside now and we hear this motor going right beside us, have a look outside and there is a 50 foot motor yacht that had anchored 10 meters next to us.  He has the whole inlet and he anchors that close!!!!!!!  A few hours later he shouts over and asks us to look at our depth finder as his is broken and as he came in in the dark he didn’t know what depth he was at.  He told us that he was in here 12 years ago and anchored too shallow and the boat ended up being high and dry and it fell to the side and as the water rose again, he lost everything.  You think he would have been better prepared considering he’d been here before and had problems.  Anyway he seemed happy enough when we told him we were in 7 meters of water at high tide.

Turrum Fish

Once again dinnertime and the rods are out the back, all of a sudden one of the lines whizzes and Andrew pulls in a 40cm Turrum fish.  We have a read up about it in “The Australian Fisherman’s companion” that Gay gave Andrew for Christmas in 2004.  The book says that these fish are better to eat the smaller they are and we cant believe it that they can grow to 41kg.  We know what’s for dinner tomorrow night.

Andrew on Henning Island

Chris on Henning Island

We have a really lazy day on Wednesday 29^th August and watch tele until about 1000 hours.    The sun shining and its warm outside, so we motor over in the tinny to Henning Island which is about 500 meters from the north of Hamilton Island and pull the anchor onto the sand.  As we are pulling up there are a young English couple who are using all their strength to push their hired little boat out of the sand – they didn’t realise the tides go out so fast and had pulled the boat up onto the beach as far as they could, except now with the tide out, there was no way they could get it back in the water.  So Andrew and Christie to the rescue and we help them pull and push the boat back into a decent depth ever so grateful and embarrassed they motor out. 

Soft coral on the rocks at Henning

We find a nice little spot on the beach and put our towels, book, snorkeling gear etc. down then go for a walk along this lovely little secluded island.  We clamber through the rocks, picking up shells and looking at and touching the seaweed that is on the rocks but out of the water because of low tide.  This coral is soft and slimy to touch, a bit strange, looks like a heap of cows udders hanging off the rocks.  As we head back around the corner to where we have left our things, we notice suddenly about 8 other people on the beach.  So much for having a quiet secluded beach.  It’s a great little island, with very good snorkeling around the reef and has a nice sandy beach on one side.    

That evening, Andrew cooked his catch in the bbq with some home made chips for dinner and was delish, shame the fish was not a bit bigger though.

Long Island

Up today, being Thursday 30^th August and ready to see some more islands.  So we head out of Gulnare Inlet at a decent tide, so didn’t have to worry about the bommies to much and head north around Henning Island towards Long Island and Happy Bay on Humpy Point where we anchored Mingo and went for a look around the resort.  This one was open for business and seemed to be doing a good trade.  We wouldn’t say the island or the resort were anything flash, but still nice and would make for a great long weekend stop. The resort offered a lot of water sports including kayaking, jet ski, tube riding, paragliding, tennis courts etc. and was in a great snorkeling spot.     We then motored the tinny further around the island and had a look at Palm Bay where there is a resort called Peppers Palm Bay which apparently is a boutique retreat with bungalows nestled in a tiny lagoon at the top of the beach.  It looked great from the water but we where chased away by the caretaker who obviously didn’t think we were good enough to visit the island.  Further down the western side of Long island and there were a lot of nice little inlets.  We were hoping to move Mingo into one later in the day out of the tonight’s winds but all were on reef’s making it not possible to anchor close enough to the beaches for a comfortable night.  On our little excursion around long Island we saw three dolphins swimming around.

Chris in tinny motoring around Whitsunday Islands

Back to Mingo for some lunch and then head off again to The Molle Islands.  Bloody Mingo, doesn’t want to go far again, before huffing and puffing and the motor stops.  We are so fed up with this happening and just don’t understand what it is.  This must have been at least the eighth time since we left Scarborough.  We have changed the fuel filters, topped up and changed the fuel, emptied fuel, bled the fuel pipe and its still happening.  So time to get on the phone to James the mechanic back in Brisbane. James has been a huge help to us over this trip with advice on the motor.   He is now saying that it’s a possibility that Mingo does not like the warmer weather and when we stop at these islands, the heat from the motor is evaporating some of the fuel from the filter, meaning that Mingo is not getting the fuel she needs to keep running.  The problem could be solved by putting in a filter to keep the fuel cooler, but hey we are in the middle of the Whitsundays, so that’s not an option at the moment.  Our best bet until we get to Townsville is to open the cover of the motor and let the warm air out, so that it’s not so hot inside evaporating the fuel - confusing!!!!!  Lets see on our next stop if it happens again or if this does work and we can motor along with no problems. 

South Molle Island

Andrew at South Molle

Day Dream Island

Anyway we manage to get going again after a little while and head to Sandy Bay on South Molle Island.  Into the tinny we get and head along the Western side of the island through Mid and South Molle and into Bauer Bay to have a look at the resort here.  Its open but no people here.  Mainly caters for backpackers on the weekends, so will be packed from Friday night but at the moment is deserted.  We have the resort to ourselves for $5 apparently.   We have a wonder around, nothing to special but good to see.

Andrew being cheeky with the mermaid on Daydream

Andrew and the Mermaids

Christie the real Hula dancer.

Andrew and his new friend

  Then over to Daydream Island.  We anchor the tinny up, and walk onto the western side of the island to a sign saying, no mooring and visitors except paying guests.  Really what can they do except throw us off so we wander around and have a good look around the resort and island.  Daydream Island is not that big but the resort is quite extensive and very nice.  There are marine areas throughout the island under walkways with coral and stingrays, fish and sharks in them, so it really feels as though you are amongst it all.  We walk the whole circuit of the island and find three mermaids that Andrew cant resist being cheeky with – say no more!!!!  Back to Mingo and we are staying anchored at Sandy Bay for the night.  The winds are suppose to be 5-10 knots, so we should be OK here, as it is well protected even though it does get affected by the tides.