Australia 2024

All good things come to an end. We were blessed with 3 days and 3 nights of good weather.

Our boat had 12 passengers, a captain and a cook. Two toilets, one shower and everyone got along well. The passengers represented eight countries: Switzerland, Germany, France, Austria, Spain, UK, US & Australia.

In the morning, we dinghy'd over to land at the end of the Nara Inlet to see an aboriginal site with some art work. We then motored over to South Molle for a little walk. Leaving the island, the winds were favorable for both sails even though we continued to be powered using 1 instead of both engines. Arriving back in Airlie Harbor, it is easy to see how popular sailing around the Whitsundays is in the area as the majority of boats in the harbor were charters. After saying our goodbyes to our fellow boaters, we loaded up our car to begin our return journey north to Townsville and then Cairns. There was a nasty weather front was coming into the Airlie area for the next couple of days -- we were ridiculously fortunate because a torrential downpour began ~1 hour after we disembarked. After leaving, we stopped in Bowen for lunch and checked out the area. The town had beautiful beaches, but was a little sleepy and nowhere near as popular as Airlie. We did find a restaurant in the harbor for a 'catch of the day' fish lunch. It was really hot, so we drove another 3 hours through some rain storms to Townsville and arrived just in time for dinner at our hotel with a beautiful view of the town.Read more