Lucinda

DRIVE: Townsville to Lucinda (139km)
It’s time to leave the YHA and Magnetic Island. It’s been a fun place to stay and packing up this morning was as simple as... throw everything in the car.

Booked on the 11.40am ferry from Magnetic Island back to the mainland, we drive to Picnic Bay, source some good coffee and drive back to the ferry terminal. As luck would have it, an earlier ferry is just about to depart and there’s one spot left for our car so we drive straight on and off we go. That’s called ‘time travelling’ as we have gained an hour for our journey up the coast from Townsville to Lucinda, the starting point for our 4 day Hinchenbrook Island hike tomorrow.

Townsville was severely flooded in February this year and although surrounded by mountain ranges, the area is quite flat and there are still signs of water receding in and around the sugar cane fields.

It’s not a long drive today and we soon pass through Ingham and on to Lucinda.

CAMP: Wanderer Caravan Park Lucinda
We managed to grab the last site and the caravan park is chocka for the Easter holidays. It’s a big park and extremely well managed and has the best bathroom amenities we have come across.

Lucinda is a fishing village and everyone at the park has a caravan, a twin cab 4WD and a fishing boat. The blokes walk around proudly wearing and displaying their favourite colourful fishing tee shirts promoting BCF or other marine businesses. You can see that they wear them like a badge of honour just like a footie or rugby top. It’s a different world.

We are staying in Lucinda for one night and then storing the campervan here at the park for 4 days whilst doing our hike.

It’s the day before tomorrow when we start ‘The Thorsborne Trail’ on Hinchenbrook Island, one of the best multi day hikes in Australia. We check our equipment and supplies for the hike and fill our hiking packs up to the brim. It’s all a bit heavy but we have to carry plenty of water, food for 4 days and our hiking tent. I sacrifice a few things and shed some weight but the emergency chocolate bars stay.

We have an 8.00am ferry transfer to Hinchenbrook with John and Absolute North Charters. It will be Easter Sunday so we hope the Easter Bunny can follow our locator beacon.

All of our food is packed away so we venture up to the local pub, there’s only one in town, and join the locals celebrating the long weekend. The place is packed inside, the rugby’s on the tv, beer is flowing and food orders are streaming in at the bar. We find one solitary table left outside and I go searching for a couple of chairs. It’s a vibrant place and everyone seems to be happy.

As we tuck in to our grub, the full moon rises in the east and cars towing fishing boats are coming and going to the jetty as if changing from day shift to night shift. It’s the day before tomorrow and we are nervously excited about our hike.Read more