Goodbye South Pacific, Gidday Australia!
03 November 2015
First Mate Linda
While it is great to be back in Australia, we are already missing the serenity of the South Pacific islands, and our ICA cruising friends.
Our passage to Australia was trouble free, which is firstly due to the ideal weather conditions, but also the confidence in our sailing ability we have gained over the past six months. We approached this passage so much more relaxed than our first leg from NZ to Tonga. We arrived in Bundaberg late afternoon, so were advised to anchor and move into the marina the next morning for clearance by customs and quarantine. Dinner this night was made up out of tinned foods as we had used up all of our fresh foods (one day too early) prior to being inspected by bio-security (gah!).
After 6 months of not quite what we are used to foods, and not so fresh fruit and vegetables, it is FANTASTIC to be able to go to the local Coles or IGA and pick up all the foods we love and have missed. I have to keep stopping myself buying too much as we have only a tiny bar fridge with an even tinier freezer, so cannot store too much at one time.
The Marina in Bundaberg was our port of entry into Australia, but is about a 20 minute drive for the city. Customs was quite a quick process, but Quarantine (Bio-security) took about 1 hour. We had been warned about this, as Australia has a very strict screening process with boats entering into Australia. They went through every cupboard and locker on Nika. The only things they took away were a couple of weaved head bands, 4 shells, and the little bags of beach sand I had collected from each of the countries we visited.
We spent 5 days in the Bundaberg Marina, catching up on a bit of maintenance (including haircuts for all, and a colour and treatment for me ), exploring the local area, taking the courtesy bus into downtown Bundaberg for some shopping and celebrating ‘trick or treat’ Halloween - Nika style, at the local ‘lighthouse festival’.
As much as we would love to take Nika north to the Whitsunday Islands, time is running out and we decided to enjoy the trip south. We sailed through the ‘Sandy Straight’ which is the inside passage of water along Fraser Island. Unfortunately the beautiful white sand beaches are on the ocean side of Fraser Island, which means the beautiful calm waters on the inside straight is all mangroves. Never the less we spent a couple of nights on anchor here and enjoyed sundowners at Inskip Pt (Pelican Bay) on the southernmost tip of Fraser Island. A trip over land on Fraser will not happen, with car hire of $450 per/day, we could not justify the expense at this point. A small sacrifice for the year we have had, we will just have to come back another time (next time with our own car!).
We have now just arrived in Mooloolabah and plan to spend a few days here enjoying the surf beach and cafes, before heading to the theme parks of the gold coast! The girls still need to finish their school work modules before this will happen!
Bye for now xx