Photo shows typical scenery along the BVRT

We are back in Manly rather prematurely after 3 days on the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail (BVRT). Queensland has had its 113 days of virus free status punctured by a leak from quarantine. One case in the community has led to a sharp strict lockdown, Jacinda Ardern style, of over 2 million people for three days while contact tracers get on top of possible infections. The worry in this case is that the poor young cleaner who tested positive had the dreaded, new Southern England variant of the virus imported via a returning Aussie. No doubt, like the recent, small outbreaks in New South Wales and Victoria, health authorities will get on top of the latest outbreak, but the restrictions are making us rather claustrophobic.

We started the 160km rail trail well up the Brisbane river valley at the crumbling little village of Yarraman. Like so many other rail trails, they run along disused rail tracks. The Brisbane Valley line took years to finish in the early twentieth century, but by the time it was fully built and running, good roads had been completed, making the line unviable. The tracks were torn up, rotten bridges over creeks closed off, some of the little stations removed and the route turned over to walkers, cyclists and horse riders. A further 150 km of cycle trail is still being completed as far inland as Kingaroy.

The rail trail runs through Eucalypt forest and farmland and is pleasant and easy because of the gentle gradient. The main obstacle was trying to work out how to get to Yarraman from Manly and back from the end of the trail.We ended up driving up to the top station and leapfrogging each other in stages while using the van to sleep in. Highest temperature was on the first day - a sweltering 38.5C, but it was grey and drizzly after that, like it is in Brisbane, now. La Nina conditions persist and Queensland has already has had its first cyclone - Imogen - only a cat 1, but it dumped huge amounts of rain in the far north.

Hopefully, as long as the restrictions here end on Monday we will be taking the boat out of the marina and heading South.



The old station master's house at Yarraman



Matilda at Lynville station



The Lynville pub - many little country villages are not much more than a pub and a general store.



Toogoolawah station



Grass trees along the BVRT



Swooping magpies? No problem as the nesting season is over!




Grey kangaroos and wallabies much in evidence along the trail on cool mornings.



Gully along the trail in the Benarkin forest where a timber rail bridge has collapsed or has been closed because it is dangerous.



There were hundreds of these little yellow and white butterflies along the trail in the Benarkin forest section.




The Yimbun tunnel



3 friendly young camels along the trail - escapees from a nearby farm.



Trestle bridge



A display of dozens of old bikes on a farmer's fence.

Photo shows budgies snuggling up to each other in the mulga near Lake Bindegolly

We are camped in a commercial campsite just south of Queensland's coldest town, Stanthorpe. It's 33 degrees C right now, but this is the only place in Queensland where it might snow in winter! Just up the road is where we picked apples (in a place appropriately enough called Applethorpe) when we were young and penniless a couple of times. We have one last destination in sight on this particular trip - to Giraween national park not far from here on the Granite Belt - before returning to the boat. The Sydney virus cluster seems to be growing only slowly, but who knows over the next few days, so we haven't bothered to venture south across the border.

We had driven west about 1,000 km from the coast, crossing several large 'rivers.' These are all just a series of billabongs when it is dry, which it is most of the year, but when it rains heavily, as it can in summer, the rivers flood and roar down towards wherever they drain to.

On Christmas Day, we were camped all by ourselves as usual, up above Lake Bindegolly between the Paroo and Bulloo rivers. This is mulga country and full of flocks of budgerigars. These wild budgies are always mostly green with bits of yellow, but they sound just like their unluckier caged cousins. We hiked down to the lake side early on a stunning, cloudless morning with budgies and many other types of parrots and other bush birds all around.



Xmas bush and water birds: from top left: corellas, major mitchell cockatoos, emu, cockatiels, pelicans, swans etc., bustard, terek sandpiper

Bindegolly is a shallow semi-permanent lake which attracts water birds from all over Queensland. It was hard to imagine just where all the birds were getting their food from as in some places on the lake it was standing room only.

The other highlight of the day was a free shower in the little village of Thargomindah. The local council provides free hot showers, a water supply and free barbecues for itinerant travellers. We camped by the muddy Paroo again on Xmas night, but by the morning, the river was in flood despite the fact that it was sunny and dry. The rivers flow from north to south, so heavy rain storms in the northern catchment eventually channel the flow downstream. This can take several days or even weeks.

We've had the roads and campsites pretty much to ourselves up to now, but with "Christmas with the family" out of the way, Queenslanders are again on the move. The outback isn't normally a great attraction in summer because it is just too hot, but with the rest of the world and even other states out of the question, the pent up desire to see something other than home is sending everyone everywhere.



Outback overview: from top left: arid Bindegolly surroundings, Xmas breakfast at Bindegolly and Thargomindah shower block, the mulga, bottle tree in Roma, the Warrego River and the Condamine River near Chinchilla

We're 'camped' next to the still, muddy Moonie River in the little village of Nindigully, not too far from St. George on the Balonne Highway. Nindigully is basically just the country pub and a large area for people to park up for the night, courtesy of the Balonne shire council. This is a common practice in little outback towns as it encourages grey nomads to spend their dollars locally.

Our plan to drive down the Great Divide into NSW was stymied by the worrisome new outbreak of Covid-19 in Sydney's Northern Beaches. It looks as if the numbers of new cases are slowing, but any venture south of the border may mean there is no way back into Queensland if the outbreak spreads.

The weather is alternating from stifling heat to pouring rain - it's a wet Queensland summer.



Camped under a coolabah tree by a billabong, basically a muddy waterhole in the Paroo River



The Paroo River, near Eulo in Southern Queensland. The Paroo flows only after plenty of rain and then it discharges into the Murray / Darling system and eventually out into the Southern Ocean at the mouth of the Murray near Adelaide.

Photo shows Sundari in the MBTBC marina in Manly.We are well tied up, but the noise is frightful!

We're tied up in a Manly, Brisbane, marina with a low pressure system and trough whipping up gale force winds and driving rain along the coast. We're glad we are not out at anchor as the conditions are horrible and the number of good SSE wind anchorages very limited out in Moreton Bay.

There has been a prediction of a strong La Niña for the last month or two, but it has been very dry up to a couple of days ago. La Niña is the opposite end of the cyclic climatic shift in the Pacific from El Niño. Here at the western side of the South Pacific, it generates more northerlies and more rain than average, plus a higher chance of cyclonic activity. Full blown cyclones have been, up to recently, very rare this far south in the past, but with climate change, cyclonic activity not only gobbles up more of the sailing season, its influence stretches further from its normal range. One plus is that the rain has finally done what the fire fighters couldn't do on Fraser Island and that is put out the huge bush fire there that had devoured 60% of the forest before the storm developed.

Once the crappy weather has blown itself out, we will head off south along the Great Divide in Matilda to do some hiking. Australia effectively shuts down over Christmas and New Year, so our re-rigging will have to wait until at least mid January.

On a brighter note, both NZ and Oz have now done so well containing the nasty virus (without vaccines!) that a quarantine free arrangement is now likely early next year between the two countries and beyond them to the Cook Islands and probably more virus free Pacific Islands. This may seem a bit hard to understand just about anywhere else in the world, but the relative normality on both sides of the ditch here is due to strict 14 day quarantine rules in place for anyone attempting to enter either country. Australia doesn't even allow Aussies to leave without an exemption and it has only been in the last couple of weeks that states have (almost) completely opened up to each other.

The last state to have any community transmission (i.e. virus circulating outside the quarantine facilities) was South Australia and because of a swift response and a measure of good luck, the state seems to have quashed the outbreak. Of course, the prospect of flying anywhere other than your own back yard, even if it is just across that familiar old ditch, is exciting enough. Meanwhile, everyone on this side of the planet will be watching just how effective the vaccine roll out turns out.

Photo shows Mystique, the current 'alpha male,' or leader, of a dozen wild Indo-Pacific dolphins that come regularly to be fed in Tin Can Bay.

We are still anchored in Tin Can Bay after retrieving Matilda, our campercar, the long way round. The weather has been mercurial recently, constantly shifting each time we search the forecast. Tomorrow should be a good day to cross the nasty bar and head south into Moreton Bay.

Alison's younger sister, Mary, messaged us one morning, asking for a story about dolphins and photos of dolphins. She wanted something to show her Zimbabwean colleague at work at Luton hospital in England. It was a bit of a coincidence that we were here in Tin Can Bay, which has a reputation as one of only two places in Australia, perhaps the world, where wild dolphins come to visit humans on their own whim (the other place is Monkey Mia in WA).

The story of the Tin Can Bay dolphins started in the 1950s when a badly injured Indo-Pacific dolphin came in to rest near a sandbank at the boat ramp in Snapper Creek. It had been hit by a boat propellor. Locals looked after it and fed it with small, live fish until it was well enough to leave on its own. Then it rejoined its pod, but it kept coming back to the cafe near the boat ramp where it had been looked after.

The wild dolphins have been coming back nearly every day since. The current leader of the 12 strong pod is called Mystique, probably the grandson of Old Scarry, the original male. Of course, it has become a tourist attraction, and tourists line up to see the dolphins when they arrive early each morning and lucky ones get a chance to hand them a sardine. The encounter could have been tacky, but seems to be a genuine experience on both sides. The cafe owners make sure that each dolphin, whichever turns up, only gets a small percentage of its daily requirements, so they don't become dependent. Touching a dolphin is illegal and could result in a $1,000 fine.

When Queensland imposed Covid travel restrictions, the dolphins kept coming into the shore, perplexed at what was wrong as there weren't any tourists. Some of them, especially Mystique, brought 'gifts' balanced on their heads to entice the human friends to turn up! One of the dolphin volunteers told us that Mystique brought in over 20 'objects', mostly empty bottles he had found on the creek bed, one day! It's all back to normal now, so excited squeals from little humans mingle with quiet smiles from wild dolphins!



The pic from the ABC article (link above) showing Mystique bringing an empty bottle as a gift to the cafe at Tin Can Bay.

We have spent a week or more anchored up this relatively sheltered inlet, home to many dozens of boats of all shapes and sizes. Near here is the wide sandy expanse of Rainbow Beach and the coloured cliffs behind. There are a number of huge, spectacular, sand dunes called 'blows' along this coast, which we have explored as well as a few jewel like dune lakes like Poona.

We still haven't hiked the 5 day Great Walk that winds its way through wallum scrub, heathland and pockets of rainforest behind the dunes between Rainbow Beach and Noosa, but it is now too hot to do too much away from water!



Carlo Sand Blow above Rainbow beach looking north towards the Wide Bay Bar we cross tomorrow,



Carlo Sand Blow looking south east towards Double island Point that must be rounded before the 70 mile slog south towards and into Moreton Bay.




The Cooloola coast and Great Sandy national park area is a mixture of heath, sand dunes, wallum and Banksia scrub, eucalypt woodland and pockets of rainforest with some large trees like this one. This area hasn't been burned yet!




Poona lake is a small, dune lake in the Cooloola wilderness and a lovely spot for a dip in the heat of summer.

Not so great news is the huge fire still burning almost out of control in the northern half of Fraser Island. The island is now closed as the fire is threatening to burn all in its path. The fire is thought to have been caused by an illegal camper and is a deadly reminder of what is still Australia's greatest threat. When Covid is beaten, climate change will still be here as a far worse problem. For now, before La Niña brings much needed rain, the smell of death blows over us when the wind comes from the north.



Another Beneteau 473 came alongside us as we ploughed our way down the "Mad Mile" - the often rough 2 to 3 miles of water behind the rollers on the Wide Bay bar and took this photo - not a great shot and a bit grainy. Update - we are now moored in the Manly Boat Harbour near Brisbane after a 24 hour passage.

Calm, quiet anchorage on the Fraser South Coast near the Wide Bay Bar

We are anchored in Tin Can Bay at the South end of the Great Sandy Strait, inside Fraser Island. There are two tidal gates on this sheltered route - both a bit nervy with a yacht like Sundari with a 2.1 m draft. The first is half way down the strait at Sheridan Flats, where the water runs fast and almost dries at low tide. The second is the Wide Bay bar - Queensland's most 'notorious' bar. It opens and closes the southern entrance to the Sandy Strait. Across the nasty bar, it's another 70 odd nautical miles of open sea to the sand bank strewn embrace of Moreton Bay.



Map of Fraser Island and the Great Sandy Strait between Fraser and the Queensland mainland. Fraser Island is a world heritage listed national park - the largest of the big east coast sand islands formed by millions of years of sand accumulation, swept north by currents from New South Wales.


We're in no hurry. When the weather is calm, like it is now, dugongs, dolphins and turtles wander by, pelicans, shags, terns, herons and other waders get on with their business and the anchorages are relatively empty. We need to get Matilda, our van, down from Gladstone so won't cross the bar for another week.

Australia, like NZ, is now virtually virus free, with one small breakout in Adelaide being competently squashed. It's other wordly gazing out from this relatively normal oasis at the rest of the world in viral chaos. Hopefully, by this time next year, with vaccine develoment looking positive, we might be able to think about leaving our bubble and venturing further afield.



Fraser coast looking north



Sundari anchored in Tin Can Bay, at the southern end of the Great Sandy Strait.



Quiet anchorage in Tin Can Bay



This is just to prove to flat earthers and other conspiracy theorists that the Earth is actually (almost) spherical.



A massive bush fire in the north of Fraser Island is sending a huge plume of weird coloured smoke towards where we are anchored off Tin Can Bay township. The fire has been battled for weeks now, and just grows back when hot northerlies are blowing.

We are on a QNP mooring in Pancake Creek on our way south to put Sundari to bed for awhile in a marina in Moreton Bay. Pancake Creek is the most popular and easiest anchorage between Bundaberg and the Keppels, at 60 odd nautical miles from either, it's about half way between the two.
It feels remote, apart from the collection of other anchored boats in here. There is no road access and no buildings anywhere near here.

The creek is a winding waterway behind Bustard Head and Clews Point, sheltered from the South through to North East by solid land and everywhere else by drying sandbanks.



Looking up Pancake Creek, Sundari in the foreground.



Sundari in Pancake Creek


The coast along this part of Queensland is dry and rather barren, with a mixture of low eucalypts, wattles, Banksias and Casuarinas. Apart from Agnes Waters there is little development for once and Pancake Creek with its all tide entry (no bar) is surrounded by Eurimbula national park.

The main attraction here is the comfortable, safe anchorage close to a sparkling, white beach, but there is a track to the 1870s era lighthouse on top of low Bustard Head. From here you can look out south over Jenny Lynd Creek and the sweep of Bustard Bay through to Round Hill and the Town of 1770, now a suburb of Agnes Waters.



Jenny Lynd Creek and Bustard bay


To the east and north east, just out of sight, is the chain of Australia's southernmost coral reefs and coral cays. They start at Lady Elliott island and reach up to North West Cay; then, the reefs take a break before the Swains reefs begin, further offshore, and form a link to the rest of the Great Barrier Reef chain .

It is the 50 mile break of open sea between Lady Elliott and Fraser Island which explains why Bundaberg, slap in the middle, has always been such a favourite entry point ino Australia from the Pacific as it is hazard free.

Tomorrow we sail down to Bundy and then on to the Sandy Strait on the way back to Moreton Bay.



Clews Point and Rodds Peninsula, with Aircraft Beach in foregroud




Entrance sign to the Bustard Head lighthouse track from the beach



Bustard Head lighthouse




Most of the wildlife around here seems to be pretty skittish, including the goannas like this one. One exception is a big male roo who hangs out near the beach.

Photo shows Sundari in the foreground with the anchored fleet off the Great Keppel resort anchorage in calm weather.

We are anchored off the North side of Great Keppel island with a heavy easterly swell and up to 30 knots of gusty wind shaking everything aboard. Great Keppel is a lovely island but its anchorages are legendary for their inability to deny the swell that seems to easily by pass the southern Great Barrier reefs that lie to windward.



Leekes Beach where we are anchored before the wind got up.



Sundari with its new forestay and repaired furler from the drone in Keppel Bay in calm weather.



Wreck Bay view with handy matching green plastic seats!



Unnamed bay looking east towards the lighthouse

In the past we have only stopped here for an odd night while hastening north or south, usually via the Narrows - the tidal route that leads trhough the mangrove channels in the shelter of Curtis Island north of Gladstone. To the North, is the long and often rough stretch of water that island hops through to the Whitsundays, with only Port Clinton and Island Head Creek permitting all round shelter.

Our first encouter with the Keppel roll was in our 30 foot kauri sloop, "Corsair" back in 1988. We anchored at tiny Hummocky Island, 10 miles short of Keppel in strong winds. The swell was so bad that as we dipped in the trough at anchor we couldn't see the other anchored boat only a hundred metres away.

A gale warning sent us scurrying into the limited shelter of the resort anchorage off the west side of Keppel, where we rolled and lurched for a few days with the other unfortunates while the promised north east gale moaned past.

Great Keppel in good weather (and we have had some) is a beautiful spot. Its beaches are splendid, the surrounding sea an aquamarine colour, and there are plenty of walking tacks that wind up ridges and down valleys to each beach. Eagles soar, echidnas and goannas scurry beneath the scrub, feral goats devour what they can of the dry vegetation and tiny, jewel like sunbirds flutter like humming birds.



Monkey Beach at the south west corner of GKI


Pre-Covid, Great Keppel was a backpacker haunt and favourite for school leavers during 'schoolies' week, but now there are only locals who sail or motor out here or arrive on the daily ferry.

An update on the nasty virus. Queensland is basically virus free, but the border is still closed with NSW. The rest of Oz, bar Victoria and NSW, are also virus free, as is NZ, which is about to have a general election in a couple of days -hopefully to produce a red / green (Labour + Greens) government with Jacindamania still working its magic!



Shy goanna in the scrub



Beach thicknees with their weird call are usually active at night - the call of the wild!



Grass trees on GKI have a hard time of it with the odd bush fire and feral goats, but ones that survive can be several hundred years old.



Well named: steel ketch "La Passarola" (Passa-roller?) anchored nearby at rolly Leeke's Beach. Colleen and Les have been based in Gladstone when needing to earn a dollar. They were on the 2008 Sail Indonesia Rally between Darwin to Langkawi with us and have been back up to SE Asia for an extended second cruise, only arriving back in Gladstone just before the Covid crisis hit.



Long Beach from Mount Wyndham

Photo shows our recently renamed wagon, "Matilda" under a convenient gum tree, for a coffee stop a bloody long way from anywhere.

We are back in Gladstone marina in the comfort of Sundari and considerably much cooler than we have been way out back. September is a good month to hit the road as it is not as cold as it could be in mid winter, but dry and sunny, while the kids are still at school.

We have driven around 5,000 km over the last few weeks and have driven inland up to near the Gulf of Carpentaria and the NT border. Apart from a few who managed to cross the border before Queensland shut it again after the virus outbreaks down south, the roads have almost been exclusively the property of Queenslanders. Of course, they can't go anywhere else, so like us have taken to the bush to see anything they haven't seen already of their own home state.

From Gladstone, we drove west past Rockhampton through increasingly dry and dusty small towns, some thriving because of the mines and many not doing so well. We spent several days exploring lovely Carnarvon Gorge, marvelling how we managed to hitch hike there so far from anywhere when we were in our 20s. We stopped at any where interesting we could, past small lakes and billabongs, looking for roos, emus, brolgas, budgies and cockatoos.



Carnarvon Gorge has a running creek in the central Highlands



Camped at Big Bend, half way up the gorge



Aboriginal cave paintings (or wet season graffiti?), probably around 10,000 years old at Cathedral Cave in the gorge.



Campsite at Lake Nuga Nuga, south east of Rolleston

The country got drier and hotter as we drove ever further from the coast. Most of the country past the hills and inclines of the Great Dividing Range is cattle country, but the cattle are often outnumbered by roos and emus. By the time we turned round after spending time near the NT border at Lawn Hill Gorge, the afternoon temps were hitting over 35 degrees!



Budgamulla, or Lawn Hill gorge, a lovely oasis in hot dry lands near the NT border

For once, we didn't have to bother about looking for campgrounds. 'Matilda' ain't too posh, but there's enough room to sleep on a mattress shoved in the back and all we did was to drive off a road behind a gum tree or under the shade of a coolibah tree by a billabong (seriously!) A 'matilda' by the way, was a slang term used in the late nineteenth century for a bedroll or swag that unemployed rural workers humped around with them while looking for work in the outback. Banjo Patterson's well known poem (and later song) 'Waltzing Matilda' was penned in the hard times of the 1890s, following the Shearers' Strike and the subsequent creation of the Queensland Labor Party and then the Australian Labor Party. It's funny to stand by the famous 'Tree of Knowledge' in Barcaldine, where the shearers strike leaders used to meet, as it is now in the heart of one of Australia's most conservative regions!



What's left of the Tree of Knowledge in Barcaldine has become quite a tourist attraction.

We now have to get the parts to repair the damaged furler and forestay on Sundari before heading out to the reefs and islands east and north of here.

More photos are in the gallery!

The Sars-COV-2 virus or, in non technical terms, a bloody nuisance

One Virus to rule them all, One Virus to find them, One Virus to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.

O.K., so Mordor it ain't, but until a safe vaccine is available to all, the virus wins, O.K.?

We are in Central Queensland. The state shut down its border with NSW, which shut down its own border with Victoria. Victoria has endured a second, harsher lockdown with many deaths and infections, thankfully now slowly receding. NSW is sort of on top of its own clusters but only just. Queensland, after a long stretch of viruslessness, now has its own little outbreak to worry about. Similarly, Auckland.

Sundari is safely berthed in Gladstone marina while we arrange for a replacement of its damaged forestay and parts of its aging furler, a re-rigging project brought forward sooner than we had hoped.

Meanwhile, we have bought an old model SUV (Mercedes Benz wagon) quite cheaply, which we can sleep in and bounce up and down dirt roads without worrying about rental car insurance. Many places we like to explore in Oz are off the beaten track and not accessible by rental cars.

It's the first time we have bought a vehicle since 2006 (in Newcastle), which we eventually sold 18 months later to our Bundy friends, who owned it for several years afterwards.



Our newly acquired (from a young German backpacker) Mercedes Benz wagon. The funny looking box on top is something to stuff useful things in that can't fit in below (plus our 2 kayaks next to it!)




There's enough space with the front seats moved forwards to sleep in the wagon comfortably, so this eliminates the cost of camp sites - there are plenty of free places in Queensland to stay for the night or two. "Freedom camping" is a lot more acceptable in Australia compared to NZ, maybe because until Covid hit, tourist numbers in NZ were way too high for comfort.

We'll spend the next few weeks while the weather is dry and neither too hot nor too cold and the kids are in school (without masks!) exploring some bits of nature. First up is a repeat trip to Carnarvon Gorge, 600 km west of here. We have visited it twice before, the first time when we hitch hiked out there in our twenties. There is a circular 6 day hike which takes in the gorge and surrounding plateau which we will tackle.

We are unlikely to leave Queensland this coming summer due to the virus that rules us all, so will do what we can to get Sundari ready for a trans Tasman crossing and enjoy what we can of the sea when it heats up a bit more than present.

After 22 years of owning Saraoni, the focus of this long lasting blog, our home for so many years, 30 odd safe ocean passages and the perfect vehicle for so many adventures and brilliant experiences, Saraoni has been sold happily to a couple from Deception Bay, just north of the Redcliffe peninsula.

Owning any boat of the size of Saraoni or more is quite a responsibility, but Cathie and Brendon seem happy and excited to take on an adventure of their own at this stage of their lives. We wish them many happy years of ownership. Haere Ra, Saraoni!

Photo above:Bundyroos? A large mob of grey kangaroos seems to have taken over the grassland at Burnett Heads, at the mouth of the Burnett River near Bundaberg.

We're anchored in Rodds Harbour all on our own. It's only 25nm south of Gladstone, a busy industrial port city, but here it seems as remote as anywhere in Australia. Dolphins and turtles swim by. Large flocks of pelicans and shags hunt for fish. Brahminy kites (langkawi!) and ospreys soar overhead.

We haven't come far north yet. We spent a few weeks in Bundaberg, or at least anchored in the river, catching up with old friends. Heather and John, who live in Bundy, who we have known for more than 20 years since we first bumped into them in PNG; Les and Colleen from Gladstone, Jo and Arnold from Adelaide and Mark and Linda from San Diego, all yachties we have met before.

Of course, everything is dominated by the pandemic. The situation in Victoria is not good and has deteriorated fast, with a spill over into NSW and now into SE Queensland and SA. Even in NZ, where the virus was eliminated, there is a sensation of being surrounded by countries where the fight against the disease seems to be getting nowhere.

We have to spend some time in Gladstone to fix some rigging issues, then sail north again assuming we can fix what we need to fix. Aussies, like many others around the world, are spending their travel time at home. For yachties on the east coast that means the traditional run up through the Keppels and into the Cumberland and Whitsunday Islands near Airlie Beach (where we bought Saraoni). It's still pretty cool here, with temps diving down occasionally tosingle figures or low teens over night and then rebounding into the low twenties during the day.



Grey kangas at Burnett Heads



Sundari at Burnett Heads from the drone



Indo-pacific dolphin in Rodds Harbour



Dinghy from the drone, Rodds Harbour



Beach in Rodds Harbour, too cold for swimming though!



No virus anywhere near us in Rodds Harbour!

Dingo on the search for tucker along the coast of Fraser island near Garry's Anchorage

We are anchored on the west coast of Fraser Island / K'Gari, more or less footloose and fancy free on a jaunt along the Queensland Coast. We could sail to New Zealand and put up with 2 weeks quarantine, but it would have to be a direct passage, as all the Pacific islands are out of bounds until 'travel bubbles' are set up. But Saraoni is still unsold and the chance of being allowed back into Australia until the border is open again is slim.



Slowly sliding with the tide towards North White Cliffs on the west coast of K'Gari - Fraser Island.

At present, Victoria is the only state or territory in Australia that has community transmission of the virus, and it's not looking pretty. All other states and territories are now in NZ's position of having effectively eliminated the virus, apart from people flying back from other parts of the world and testing positive in quarantine. Until Victoria is able to squash the virus problem they have, borders will remain closed to Victorians and the concept of a quarantine free travel bubble between NZ, Australia and the other virus free Pacific islands will be on hold.

Getting out of Moreton Bay in the middle of winter, even on Sundari, took some time. The bottleneck is the Wide Bay Bar, the shallow and often rough and dangerous crossing that allows passage into the Sandy Strait between Fraser Island and the mainland. If the wind is up from the predictable South, it's good for sailing, but the swell is then up as well and the bar becomes increasingly dangerous. In the end, we had almost flat conditions in lovely sunshine as we crossed the bar for our seventh time, twice in "Corsair" and four times in "Saraoni."



Coochimudlo Island South of Brisbane in Moreton Bay has a lovely walk around the perimeter of the island and a laid back vibe.



Wide Bay Bar was tranquil today, but dangerous the next! If you miss the bar you can still sail north around the east coast of Fraser Island, but it's an overnight passage, or wait in swelly conditions behind Double Island Point.

Past Wide Bay is the windy passage between sand banks, the Fraser coast and mangrove covered islands. After floods, the passage changes, but the buoys and charts aren't always adjusted. The lowest depth in the middle of the Strait is about 0.6m at low water springs. Sundari has a draft of 2.1m, meaning that we need a tide of 1.6m+ to get through without bumping the bottom. Even though it was the seventh time through the Sheridan Flats, this time it was more nerve wracking than ever, especially with a howling 30 knot wind whipping up the whitecaps from a passing trough.

As always with the weather, everything has now calmed off and we have the west coast almost to ourselves and a few others. The diaspora of yachts from southern states hasn't happened because the Queensland border has been closed and foreign yachties are either marina bound because of restrictions on their visas or stuck back in thei home countries with their boats still here in Oz.

We don't really have any plans over the next few months of the sailing season. We have always had to rush along this coast, so we now have time to dawdle just where we want to, although we wouldn't mind some warmer weather and warmer sea!

Photo shows the old Brisbane to Gympie rail tunnel in Dularcha National Park.


We are out and about again in Moreton Bay, currently anchored in a light southerly in Raby Bay. With the number of active and new Covid-19 cases in Queensland dropping to near zero, the state government has opened up travel within Queensland almost without restrictions. There is still a little community transmission in Victoria, but it appears that Australia is to follow New Zealand's recent declaation it has eliminated the virus from within the country, allowing just about everything to go back to 'normal'.



Ka Pai! NZ has eliminated the virus, after decisive leadership and just a bit of luck. Jacinda and the NZ Labour Partys's poll ratings are sky high. The election is in 3 months time and it's hard to see Labour in a position to control the Parliament without the more progressive Greens or the more backward looking NZ First in a MMP environment, even with Jacindamania, but who knows? 100 days is a long time in today's troubled times. We just hope the NZ Labour Party has something more exciting to say in its manifesto other than more neoliberal gibberish.

Of course, nothing is completely normal. It's a bit like looking out from the eye of the storm at the mess that much of the world is in. The prospect of not being able to travel to all but a few favoured 'virus free or near free' countries for the forseeable future is not a very inviting one, although realistic at present.

We have been lucky to return to our 2 boats, something that has been denied to thousands of Aussies and others who have boats stranded in Queensland and elsewhere because of state and international border closures. We have also been strangely isolated from economic disruption, as those invisible clients of ours have been asking for online work in almost the same quantity as before the nasty virus emerged from its bat origins.

We have a reduced cruising plan for this year, with the Pacific Islands still closed to inbound yachts, although that might change after July. When the weather is right (!) we will sail outside Fraser Island to the southern Barrier reef and islands, as far as the Keppels and Whitsundays. It is a route that we have plied several times before over the last 30 odd years, but normally we have never had time to hang around, always under pressure to hasten north or south in pursuit of the almighty dollar.

The NZ / Aus transTasman virus free bubble, already mooted, is likely to be ready by September or October, so we will probably be Aotearoa bound by then.



Lovely sunset at Raby Bay tonight. It is getting dark before 5 p.m. here in SE Queensland and is not light until after 6.30 a.m. It would be nice to be somewhere a bit warmer where we can go swimming!

Photo shows a red backed flying fox (fruit bat) in Redcliffe's Botanical Gardens

We're going steadily batty here in Scarborough marina. Queensland is slowly easing Covid-19 restrictions as the risk of contracting the virus is now near zero. The Labor led state government has been very cautious, as there are still infections cropping up further south in NSW and especially Victoria, although even there the virus situation is almost non-existent compared to many other parts of the world.

Like the other (almost) virus free states, the Queensland state borders are closed to interstate vistors. This has gone down like a lead balloon in Coalition led New South Wales, where many people want to escape the cold and head north. There's a possibility that Queensland will form a "trans Tasman bubble" with NZ before it lets people from NSW and Victoria into the state!

(update: Oops, might have got that wrong)

We can now go 150 km away from 'home' and return in the same day. This may change soon to 250 km, but we are waiting for the magical "you can stay away" declaration before we exit the marina and hot foot it up to... .well somewhere at least a bit hotter than here. It's bloody freezing today. Our original plans for 2020 have like everyone else's come to a shuddering halt, but there could be worse places in the world to be stuck.

We've hired a car for a few weeks while we are here to stop us from going completely batty and have gone for walks, bike rides, kayak trips and wildlife hunts, as far as we can get in a day. We've also fixed the freezer, the fridge, the desalinator, hauled up our new furling genoa, installed a new solar controller, inverter and wind generator, gone to give Saraoni a spruce up, eaten too much, drunk too much red wine and have been tapping away on our computers as the demand for online work hasn't diminished.

Here in Scarborough marina there are many other boats and their owners, still waiting for a chance to leave, or a miracle cure for the nasty virus. There are people here we knew from the 2008 Sail Indonesia Rally and others we have met at odd times in more exotic parts of the world. There are also other marina residents: hundreds of swallows that are intent at making nests inside our sail bag, a family of ospreys that land on the mast of the abandoned ketch next door and dismember their fish lunch all over Sundari, the pelicans, herons, shags and fish that like to munch on the weed that's begiining to grow on Sundari's hull.



photos top row: purple swamphen, corellas,lily
2nd row:kookaburra, turtles(2 diff. species)
3rd row:grass tree, red backed wren, fruit bat
4th row:male grey roo, willy wagtail, pelican
5th row:white heron, D'Aguilar track, shags
bottom: Glasshouse mountains from Wild Horse mountain

Photo shows Deception Bay, just north of Scarborough. It's a muddy, shallow bay wih mangroves, moorings and birds.

We have been back in Scarborough marina for about 3 weeks now. Australia, like New Zealand, has largely supressed Covid-19, but at a price. International travel is basically non-existent.

Each state and territory here is shut off, and regional travel, at least here in Queensland, limited to day trips of no more than 50 km. The limit is going to be extended to 150 km next week and probably lifted altogether in a few weeks. The extension will allow us to get down to Saraoni, with several people already lined up for a viewing.

There is the possibility of a trans Tasman 'bubble' and an extension to other nations that have been relatively succesful with combating the virus. Of course, that could all change if there is too much complacency here in Oz. The success of any pre-vaccine regime depends on low case frequency, good testing, contact tracing and maintenance of physical distancing. It looks as if it is the latter that is gonig to be the problem world wide as each country experiments with an esacpe from lockdown.

Meanwhile, we have used the time to make some improvements on Sundari. We have tried to fix the desalinator, which has suffered from rusty springs in its high pressure valve, the fridge is yet to be fixed, a new wind generator is already in position, a new MPPT solar energy controller diverts the sun's energy to a new battery bank.

We now have 2 totally new sails and are keen to see how they look and work. We have paid up at expensive Scarborough marina until early in June, so hopefully we can escape north towards the Keppels and Whitsundays then. It's hard to plan anything more meaningful past July or August!

Sign along an almost empty Highway 1 on the way to Auckland

Stay Home! is the message, but hundreds of thousands of people can't get home, or have to hunker down somewhere in the world that is definitely not home. We have made it across the ditch in an effort to save our two boats from who knows what, but the price is two weeks 14 storeys up in a Brisbane CBD hotel.



Coronabandit in lockdown mode

We are not allowed to leave the room and can't open the window. 3 meals a day are provided and we can get extra stuff delivered to the door from Woolworths, so it's not too uncomfortable, just boring. Fortunately, we seem to have just as much, if not more, online writing work to do so that should keep us busy in our little guilded cage.

We've only been away from 'home' for five weeks, so we are sure the two boats are fine. Queensland doesn't have quite the same strong lockdown rules as New Zealand, but even so, life looks like it might be very constrained for the forseeable future. We still have the chance of sailing Sundari back to New Zealand later in the year if we can get our rigging done and the weather is right. By the time we arrived, we would have completed most of the two weeks 'quarantine' needed for entry.

Just as an aside, We have been sailing around for more than 30 years. All that time we have had a yellow Q flag on board and have hung it up the starboard spreaders frequently. We've only just realized the very real historical signifcance of that flag, as in years gone by the main way a new pathogen was introduced into somewhere new was when an infected sailor unwittingly brought it ashore, often with devastating consequences.



Our 5 star quarantine jail house at the Westin hotel

Photo shows the inner Bay of Islands from Te Tii Beach. In the far distance can be seen Tikitiki Rock (the Ninepin), the natural marker every yacht rounds entering or leaving the Bay of Islands

Stay at Home! Break the Chain! Be Kind! So goes the mantra while NZ tries to eliminate SARS-Cov-2. Whether it does or not depends on everyone adhering to strict lockdown rules, anathema to some. The idea is that as it takes 2 weeks for the virus to go through a cycle in the respiratory system of those affected, the 4 week lockdown should eliminate the virus from within the NZ population. There is no certainty that's going to work, as the virus may still lurk within the population and reinfections could occur once the international border opens up again, whenever that happens.

Across the ditch, the situation is more complicated, not least because each state and territory is making up its own rules, the country is further down (or up) the infection rate curve and the strategy is more of a 'stepped up', rather than a 'lockdown' one.

Whatever happens, it's unlikely that the world, including this small part of it, will ever return to what it was before.

What's making it even more surreal is being in the Bay of Islands without a boat. We have spent more time than we care to think about around here, more often than not in one of the outer bays, but rarely, if ever, marooned on land. It was from here that we anchored before departing across the Tasman 3 times in a row. The first was directly from Paihia, only a stone's throw from where our motel is, in 1987, outbound for Noumea.

The rules about boaties in the lockdown period are confused. It hasn't occurred to the Govt. that people actully live on boats (and caravans, garages, park benches etc.) and therefore may have no other homes. There's even a write up in one ofthe papers about a guy who lives in a bus stop. He says it is remarkably peaceful without buses! Locals come by and offer him free hot meals and stop for a chat, 2 metres away of course! The 'Stay at Home' rule doesn't really apply to anyone who is not a nice, middle class family with a home that resembles a house.

There are also supposedly around 100,000 tourists trapped in NZ too, many of them on 1 or 2 year holiday work visas. 20,000 Germans are due to be flown out courtesy of their government, but the 20,000 Brits are stuck here. Some we spoke to are secretly glad they are staying here, and not returning to Blighty any time soon!

Tutukaka marina is closed and boaties have been told not to go out in boats. We've seen a few yachts skulking around in the distance here in the Bay of Islands, but whether they are breaking the current lockdown law or not is hard to know.

There are similar issues in Queensland. The Queensland border is closed to anyone driving or sailing across the border from NSW (unless you want to go through a 14 day quarantine). After that is anyone's guess. Whatever is the rule today could change tomorrow at any rate.

We go on a 'local' walk every day along the waterfront, doing the 2 metre dance around others and making jokes without getting too close. The weather has been glorious, with clear blue skies and calm seas. The Bay's dolphins and other wildlife are no doubt relishing their new found serenity with human traffic reduced to zero.

Everyone around here seems to be obeying the rules. There are 2 supermarkets within easy walking distance, which is the only time we get close to anyone. If we are here any longer we might just contemplate buying a third boat and sticking it in our empty marina berth at the Penguin pad!



Looking out to Motumaire Island and the Russell Peninsula. Anchor to the north of Motumaire - good anchorage in southerlies. Anchor to the south - good anchorage in northwesterlies. Not a boat to be seen today. Weird!



Te Tii Beach looking towards Waitangi. Favoured anchorage in westerlies to get to the supermarket just inland from here. One ketch has been anchored here since the lockdown.

Photo shows the Hokianga Harbour from Opononi, half way through our cycle trip.

We are in a cheap motel in Paihia in the Bay of Islands after a sometimes gruelling cycle trip around Te Tai Tokerau / Northland. While puffing our way up and down Northland's ups and downs, the nasty virus was hatching its plot to conquer the world and teach humanity a sharp lesson. We are now a day away from New Zealand's lockdown, with numbers of infections here beginning to follow the same exponential growth curve as elsewhere in the world, albeit somewhat later.



Discarded bikes on the entrance way back on the cycle trail at Kaikohe.




Wairere Boulders at the end of the cycle way.




Pakaraka (extinct) volcano above Lake Omapere.



The Harrison Reserve on the cycle way on the way to Horeke.



The Warawara Range in the distance as we wind our way out of the Hokianga. Ex Ranch Saraoni was not far north of here in the Takahue Valley.

Whether the NZ Government's move will stop the spread of the disease or just keep it at bay until a vaccine is developed, or antivirals prove both safe and effective, is in the lap of the gods. Mind you, talking about gods, the religious have become strangely quiet all of a sudden!

Thanks to all our NZ friends for offering assistance and accommodation when the barriers to travel were first announced. They will be just as affected as everyone else in the world as the crisis escalates, so stay safe everyone and see you all at the other side!



Long finned eels in the Kaihu River, near Dargaville, oblivious to the human madness elsewhere.




Tane Mahuta, Northland's largest kauri, in Waipoua Forest, will probably be glad to see the back of people for a few months.



Grafton was the small NSW town where the Christchurch mosque killer was brought up. Residents stuck up this sign after the slaughter and subsequent aftermath. The billboard has gone up again after Aussies look across the ditch once again for leadership.

Hopefully, if there is one thing that comes out of the current global madness is an awareness of the link between some of the nastiest viruses that have emerged so far and humanity's impact on nature. Ebola, SARS, MERS, Swine fever and now SARS-Cov-2 are all thought to have made the jump from wild animals to humans. SARS-Cov-2, the so called novel coronavirus, is thought to have originated in the Huanan wet market in Wuhan, just one of many markets where wild animals, both alive and dead, are available for sale and consumption on the spot.

SARS-Cov-2 has horseshoe bat and pangolin genetic markers within its RNA strand. Whether it really did jump from pangolins to people is neither here nor there. People have intruded so far into the habitats and existence of wildlife that it is inevitable that this sort of transmission is more likely as George Monbiot points out in the Guardian.

We have just had our first day under lockdown. Hardly anyone around, although we did drive aimlessly to the supermarket.

The Bay is looking beautiful in the autumn sunshine and we saw at least 6 yachts sailing out, presumably to hide away in one of the outer bays. We have heard that the Queensland Police are clamping down on boaties trying to move around there but whether it is just in marinas we are not sure. Tutukaka marina is closed except to liveaboards and they are not allowed to leave in their boats. Welcome to the new reality!

The 2 Giant bikes bought in Whangarei in 2005, pulled out of storage. They needed a bit of no. 8 wire work on them to get them roadworthy.

We are camped near the Waitangi Treaty Grounds in the Bay of Islands after recovering our two old Giant bikes from the storage shed we loaded up with useless goodies nearly 3 years ago in Opua. It feels a bit weird being back in the Bay without a boat, but it's partly a business trip for us here, as well as a chance to get some exercise puffing up and down Northland's hills. We have rather reluctantly had to sort our pensions out before getting too decrepit and will go and measure the marina berth in Tutukaka to see if Sundari can fit in anywhere, before abandoning the Penguin Pad altogether.



The westerly anchorage at Paihia in the Bay of Islands -strange to be here without a boat!


Auckland Airport was heaving with everyone from everywhere and to judge by the number of tourists in this campground and little tacky, nearby Paihia, wories about COVID-19 haven't dented the tourism industry in NZ, except possibly the numbers of Chinese tourists are way down.

Northland has supposedly been in deep drought, the worst ever. Whangarei has been the driest since WW2 and the normally lush green cow paddocks of the Waikato are (or were, brown). Of course, it has been raining every day since we arrived. Perhaps we could sell our services as drought breakers!

Northlanders of course are happy about the drizzle. We heard kiwi calling just behind our tent last night, first the shrill male, then the harsh female. Apparently, Northland brown kiwi have been stumbling out of the bush during the drought looking for water.The dry ground has made it difficult to probe for worms with their long beaks.

Our 2 bikes were in a bit of a mess when we eventually extricated them from the treasure trove they had been squashed in. They had aready survived nearly 10 years chained to a non existent shed while stored up at the Saraoni ranch while we were circumnavigating, even being danced upon by happy cows. We have had to use a bit of No. 8 wire tactics on getting them in suitable shape to ride on with all our gear, with help from the friendly bike hire guy in Paihia.

We will cycle over Northland's new bike path that goes from Opua to the Hokianga, ride through the kauri forest to Dargaville, over to Whangarei and down to Auckland before checking out the marina at Tutukaka. We should be back in Scarborough on Sundari by the end of March, ready for whatever adventures we get up to this year.



Pou Herenga Tai - the 85 km cycle path that links Opua to Horeke on the Hokianga across the Northland peninsula from east to west coast.