Photo shows Sundari anchored at Goold Island, just north of the Hinchinbrook Channel.

We are on a Ports North pile mooring in Cairns' Trinity Inlet, opposite the substantial navy base. We are now about 800nm (1500km) north of Moreton Bay and Brisbane and just under 2 months from when we sailed out from that bay on May 3rd.

Cairns has obviously recovered from its Covid 19 severe headache when almost no-one was able to or wanted to visit one of Oz's premier tourism hot spots. We hired a car last week and struck traffic congestion like we haven't seen or wanted to see for a long while, the streets thronged with crowds, many of whom had signed up for one of the 'Great Barrier Reef' tour packages.

We've been here before by boat, the first time in 1988, on Corsair and twice on Saraoni, in 2001 and 2008. When we were working in Papua New Guinea between 1988 and 1997, Cairns was our much visited 'home away from home', more so than either Britain or New Zealand.

Cairns is still best visited by boat, with the grand vista of the mountainous hinterland all around the harbour.

To get here, we sailed the well trodden path up from the Keppels, through the island studded, but stressful, part of Queensland's remote central coast to the Whitsundays, then hop scotched it to Magnetic Island and Townsville. From Townsville, we sailed to the Palm Group, and using light winds, entered Zoe Bay on the eastern side of Hinchinbrook Island, usually verboten to yachts, as it is exposed to the trades. Once past Hinchinbrook, the wet tropics dominate, with a succession of rain-forested islands before Fitzroy Island and finally the corner at Cape Grafton before Cairns.

We sampled one of the outer reefs that had supposedly not been too badly damaged by the trifecta of cyclones, coral bleaching and silt run off. Beaver reef and its tiny sand cay were only 20 nautical miles east of Dunk Island and its lovely anchorage, so an easy target. We have downloaded the Eye on the Reef app that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Authority urges transient visitors to the reef use. So we will add our comments and reports over the next few months as we sample some of the reefs that are accessible.



Scenes along the route to Cairns from the left, row by row:

Great Keppel's Middle Island, Curlew Island, Florence Bay, Magnetic Island
Cape Upstart
Horseshoe Bay, Orpheus Island
Hinchinbrook's Zoe Bay, Zoe creek waterfall




Characteristic wildlife en route to Cairns:

Rainbow bee-eater, kookaburra on Great Keppel;
Sleepy koala at the Forts, allied rock wallaby at Nelly Bay, Magnetic Island;
Giant clam and plate coral at Orpheus Island in the Palm Group.


Since we've been in Cairns, we have hired a car and visited the Daintree River and the Daintree National Park. We have been up to the Daintree once before by car and have sailed past the Cape Tribulation area twice before (going north and south), but this time used the Daintree ferry and explored the coastal Daintree rainforest. This, and our exploration of nearby reefs, will be the subject of the next blog!