On Monday we drove non-stop from Flaggy Rock Café to the Island Gateway Holiday Park at Jubilee Pocket, which is just a little way past the main central business district of Airlie Beach. The park’s admin staff were especially friendly and helpful, and they also act as booking agents for local tours.
Matilda was allocated a nice grassy site. When we set up we looked at the awning and the electronic, which were both playing up. Ian slapped more tape on the awning to keep it closed at the rear end. The step now needs a little nudge to retract, and we decided to live with this.
We considered activities, dining and accommodation options for the next few days, and looked into a doggie day care for Dexter. Katie found an advertisement for a café that was particularly welcoming.
We received a phone call from our friends John and Joy from Bowen (our next stop), and we arranged to catch up on Thursday and to try camping on vacant land across from their house. We met John and Joy on our Majestic Princess cruise to Hong Kong. We cooked smoked mackerel from Grunske’s and pearl couscous for dinner—so good!
After Dexter’s morning walk and breakfast, we decided to go a one-day sail in the Whitsunday Passage. We considered three boats recommended by the park’s admin staff, and settled on the Providence V. This boat is a replica of the Grand Banks fishing schooners and was built from North Queensland timber. The main objective of the sail was to see Whitehaven Beach, which is well known for incredibly white and fine quartz sand. We turned our attention to doggie daycare, and rang several providers. We had two professional people available to mind Dexter, but Narelle from the office also offered to mind Dexter overnight too so we could get away early for sailing the next morning. We settled on accepting Narelle’s offer.
We drove to Cedar Creek Falls which was a very nice secluded creek with rocky outcrops leading to a waterfall and a swimming hole. At first Dexter was not very confident to go over the rocky surface leading to the water—this was different from a sandy beach. The temptation to get wet was eventually too great, and he went for a paddle, but did not get out of his depth.
We then dropped Dexter off at Narelle’s house for an overnight stay. Narelle has a Labrador X Border Collie called Buster, and her daughter, Teagan, has a parrot called Mango. Dexter immediately got on well with Buster, but we were a bit concerned about the parrot, who often has the run of the house. We warned Narelle that Dexter likes to chase birds, and we did not want to think about what he would do if he caught one. We were assured that the bird would be OK, so we left Dexter with his bedding and some food. We received an SMS from Narelle later with good evidence that Dexter had settled in well—he was being spoilt by Teagan.
As we were now dogless, we walked across the road from the caravan park to the Jubilee Tavern for dinner on pasta night.
On Wednesday morning, we rose early to find sticky syrup leaking from a plastic bottle of peaches in the fridge, onto the motorhome floor. Cleaning up took some time, so we missed breakfast and went to the front of the caravan park to be collected by a shuttle bus. We arrived at Abell Point Marina North for boarding the Providence V.
We had 20 adults and 2 small children on board as passengers. Kieran from Scotland was the skipper and Brett from Poland was the crew. This sailing boat has 2 masts and can raise a bunch of sails, but we motored all the way to Tongue Bay or Hill Inlet on Whitsunday Island.
Brett led us to a series of lookouts over Whitehaven Beach, where we looked down to Whitehaven Beach.
We then were given time to climb down onto the beach itself. Ian walked out into the clear water in search of rays and lemon sharks. There were plenty of rays and whiting, but no sharks on the day. We tried rubbing the very fine white sand on our bodies to exfoliate our skin.
Back on the boat, we had a packed salad for lunch. Providence V then motored back to Hook Passage between Hook Island and Whitsunday Island to allow passengers to go snorkelling along the fringing reef. Ian wore his contact lenses for better vision underwater. You can lose track of time when snorkelling, and Ian was one of the last to come out of the water. Again, there was a total lack of sharks.
On the way back to Abell Point, we motored all of the way but raised four sails to assist sailing. It was a good feeling to be under sail in a relatively large sailing boat (for us). We enjoyed some fruit, then the bar opened and Ian had a couple of Coronas while topless soaking up the late afternoon sun. There are no photos of Ian topless.
We arrived back at Abell Point at 4:30pm after a full 9 hours on board. We were driven back to the caravan park, from where we set off to collect Dexter. It was dusk, and Narelle told us that she had to go out at 5:00 pm, and she thought Buster was best in the house. We wanted to collect Dexter before dark so that he would not fret by being alone in the yard. James in the Tom Tom got us lost, but we recovered and arrived at Narelle’s just on dark to find Dexter waiting patiently for us at the front gate. We left a bottle of good Hunter Valley Semillon and a box of Malteasers for Narelle and her daughter Teagan for looking after Dexter.
Back at the caravan park, Ian relaxed over a couple of Cloud Catchers. All three of us were pooped. Dexter had his normal dinner, but Katie and I just had some bread and jam and ice cream for dinner. We all hit the sack early.
We slept well after a big day. We were ready to leave at 9:30 am on Thursday, and dropped into the office to leave a message of farewell and thanks to Narelle. We drove out to Shute Harbour, from where in 2004 we caught a boat to Long Island. We spent five nights at Club Croc. Unfortunately, the area was flattened by a cyclone a couple of years ago, and we understand that Club Croc no longer exists. The area around Shute Harbour was still looking a bit derelict.
John had asked Ian to pick up some ukulele strings from the Airlie Beach music shop. We found the shop OK, and bought some good quality strings with a low-G. In the same street there was a brewery, but it had just been set up and was not yet open—bugger!
We headed north for Bowen.
Grey Nomad Adventures 