Coral Sea

Macca had set the timetable as he had to get us back on the 5:00pm ferry and needed to be there by 4:45.

We’d already come across a tag team that were having problems with cars overheating 🥵. Fortunately they were in a place where we could get past all four of them, but many tracks are single file with only small passing places.

Throughout the day, Macca had been telling us how bad the tracks were becoming. They do go out and water them, but it wasn’t having much benefit. The worst thing to do is to get bogged and then sit spinning the wheels as it simply digs a deeper hole. Actually the worst thing is to ground the chassis which is what happens after you’ve dug a deep hole with the wheels - then you need a spade. There’s lots of wheel spinning due to lots of inexperienced drivers, the sand in some places was extremely soft.

After 45 minutes of pretty hairy driving, we arrived late at the ferry just before 5. One coach and 6 cars were still to turn up. The ferry operators give the vehicles as much time as they can but, with the tide going out, they had to be off by 5:20. One coach and two cars managed to get to the ferry before it left. I asked one of the crew what the remaining four cars would do and he simply replied “be early for tomorrow’s first ferry 😂”. Great sense of humour. Actually they went to another ferry crossing for 7:30pm. One of the vehicles had to change a wheel and that is why they were delayed, delaying everyone else in their group.

The cat permanently lives on board the ferry. His job is to keep the seagulls off ferry. Apparently, since he’s lived on board it’s saved about 40 minutes a day not having to wash down the outside seats.

That evening we returned to Bertha with no power 😩, something to be fixed once back at Brisbane.

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