Photo above with Geoff, Hazel, Al and Dave taken almost 40 years ago at Cornwall's Land's End on a trip to England by 2 small town Kiwis which proved somewhat more than they had bargained for!

A random Facebook message gave us the chance to meet up with an old acquaintance, Hazel Menehira, writer, poet, actress, speech therapist, journalist, once upon a time hippy and matriarch of her part Māori whānau, resident in Cairns since 2003.

We last saw Hazel and her partner at the time, Dave, when we pulled into Cairns' Trinity Inlet on the way North at the start of our circumnavigation in 2008, but had kept in touch with her sporadically over the years since 1979, when we were teaching in Wanganui at the southern end of New Zealand's North Island.

Both Hazel and Dave had been involved in the 1,000 hectare block of rough Wanganui back country adjoining the Ruatiti River which we also had a share in (formerly Rivendell, then Riamaki). We used to spend time with Dave propping up the bar at the Fosters pub in the Wanganui CBD, before being introduced to Hazel.

Dave sadly died a year after we last saw him, but Hazel found a new partner in quiet poet, Hank West, and has continued her own writing career. She's now 88, but her last book was only written and published 2 years ago. We hope we keep our marbles like Hazel when we get to 88!



Hazel, Hank and us meet for lunch at the Yorkeys Knob Yacht Club just north of Cairns.



One of many books Hazel has written over the years. This one was co-authored with Hank.

Photo from the drone shows us anchored alone just off Langford Island in the Whtsundays.

We are anchored back again just off the Coral Sea marina in Airlie Beach after having spent the last few weeks wandering around the Whitsundays, exploring new anchorages and meeting up with old yachtie friends.



Yachties meet up on Sundari - Tim, roaming around with his new partner, Dawn, from his Tasmanian home, Rosie and Mike on Shakti and Ralph on El Misti. Jo and Arnold from Adelaide, are on a nearby island on their yacht, Black Star

Airlie has been relatively quiet as there are no overseas tourists and, because of the lockdowns in Sydney and Melbourne, no-one from NSW or Victoria either, except those who have sailed here or escaped in a vehicle overland before the Queensland border shut.

The weather started atypically with calms and sunny skies, but lately it has been more like the usual mid winter weather with moderate to strong trade winds and squally showers - not so comfortable when hiding behind any of the steep-to hillsides on the larger islands.



Looking up Nara Inlet on Hook Island, Sundari in the foreground



Cid Harbour on Whitsunday Island from Whitsunday Peak



Blue Pearl Bay on Hayman Island



Butterfly Bay at the top end of Hook Island



Langford Island south of Hayman

Gradually the water has warmed up and we have spent quite a lot of time snorkelling, not quite warm enough yet to use our dive equipment.



Underwater scenes at Blue Pearl Bay, Hayman Island

When the wind pipes up we have been climbing hills on the island national park trails and hiking the Conway circuit on the mainland, a 3 day 2 night walk through the rainforest of the Conway National Park.



Repulse Creek campsite in Conway National park on the 3 day Conway Circuit hike



Bracket fungus in the Conway NP rainforest



Tree snake on the Conway Circuit - we came across half a dozen snakes altogether on the trail, quite an unusual number!



Elkhorn fern on a rainforest tree

We will park Sundari in Bowen marina for a week or so soon and complete the 4 day Thorsborne Trail on Hinchinbrook Island, between Townsville and Cairns, then go and see our old friend from Whanganui, Hazel Menehira, who has been living in Cairns for many years.

Further plans are almost impossible to make at the moment, even here in Oz. Delta arrived first here, then in NZ and has been causing merry havoc. Although Queensland, SA and WA crushed the small virus outbreaks they had, NSW and now, sadly, Victoria, have lost to the dreaded Delta, with increasing numbers of daily cases and deaths. NZ appears at this stage to have the upper hand, but the race is on on both sides of the ditch to vaccinate as many people as possible now vaccine supplies have multiplied. Our own plan to drive over to Perth and cycle the 800 km Munda Biddi cycle trail may have to be put on hold until the local pandemic situation settles down, hopefully next year (!?)

Photo shows Sundari peacefully at anchor in Pancake Creek, 60 miles north of Bundaberg

We're anchored in Pioneer Bay off the tourist town and yachtie / cruising hub of Airlie Beach. We are now 400 nautical miles north of Brisbane, a 3 day / 3 night jaunt if we had sailed directly, but for us it took 10 days of sailing so that we could anchor by dark each day, in a bay by the mainland, or on an island. Sailing overnight along this coast is not as easy as an ocean passage because of the risks of heavy shipping, reefs and changeable weather patterns that might be encountered. We were last here in 2007, on a rush north as was usual then to get to a teaching job in Townsville. It's also where Saraoni, aka Tekin JB, spent its summer layups, tied to a rickety wharf not far from where we are now anchored. The previous owners had tired of the annual slog up from New South Wales and back again at the start of the cyclone season and had played Russian Roulette with nature as now do many other boats up here. A direct hit from a summer cyclone is rare, but the Whitsundays and Airlie Beach got badly damaged with many boats sunk in March 2017 by Cyclone Debbie.

Back in 1998, after an adventurous 10 years in Papua New Guinea, we had Tekin JB surveyed out of the water at the main boatyard in Airlie, then almost immediately after buying it set off for New Zealand via the Queensland and New South Wales coasts, a direction that was swiftly reversed after accepting a job offer in Darwin! We passed through Airlie a couple of months and 1200 miles later after buying Saraoni and yet again in November 2001 on a more successful trip through to Auckland on the next job offer!

Airlie is the main base for the Whitsunday Island group, Queensland's most popular coastal cruising destination. We have always avoided it in the past, but this year we are glad we are here and will spend the next couple of months mooching between lovely anchorages and doing as much snorkelling, diving and whale watching as we can fit in.



Looking South towards Pentecost and Lindeman islands in the Southern Whitsundays.

One of the world's (and only?) best good news stories as far as nature is concerned is the return in numbers of the baleen whales, hunted to near extinction last century. The humpback whale population has rebounded in leaps and bounds with the East and West Australian coasts now winter retreats for around 35,000 plus whales each. They come up here for mating and having babies, and don't feed until their return to Antarctica. We've seen around half a dozen on the trip up from Bundaberg so far, not that close, but friends have reported that there are a lot of them on the outer barrier reef past the outer Whitsundays where we will be going to next.



Humpbacks blowing, fluking and humping on a calm morning in the Whitsunday Passage near Airlie Beach

It has been quite a slog getting up here even though we have had some good sailing conditions. From Bundy, we had a 60 mile sail up to Pancake Creek, where we stopped last year. Then another 60 mile sail to the Keppel Islands where we stopped for a few days while a trough went by. The Keppels was our northern turning around point last year, delayed by Covid restrictions and a rigging failure. Past the Keppels we day sailed, stopping a night each at lovely Pearl Bay, Curlew Island, Brampton, Shaw and Hamilton Islands.



Keppel Island sunrise



Leekes Bay in the Keppels



Sundari at Pearl Bay from the drone



Curlew Island in the Northumberland Group



Shaw Island in the Southern Whitsundays

As for any plans past this year's cruise up to the tropics, there's no plan as all travel out of Queensland has been put on hold because of the outbreaks in Sydney and Melbourne. It's easier to get to New Zealand than half of Australia but anything could change as the nasty virus is currently running rings around humanity!

Hello, Reef, Good Bye Reef? The Great Barrier Reef is deteriorating because of a lethal combination of ocean warming, acidification and nutrient rich run off from coastal agriculture, mining and an ever growing population. (Not our photos, by the way....yet!)

We are anchored near the mouth of the Burnett River, loaded to the gunwales with food, fuel and water to last us until we hit the next main supply centre up at Airlie Beach in the Whitsunday Group, maybe over a month or two away as we sidle up along and inside the southern section of the Great Barrier Reef.

While here we have met up yet again with our old time Bundy friends, Heather and John, who we first met while surveying the Louisiade Group in Eastern PNG on our then 60 year old kauri sloop, "Corsair" in 1998. We have kept in contact with these two as our paths have crossed up and down the eastern seaboard of Oz and NZ, where they sailed to in their 32 foot Adams sloop "Kindred Spirit" and even Greece when Heather made her first visit to Europe to see her daughter and grandkids in Belgium. Last week, Vicki and her two Flemish speaking daughters came to visit us at Port Bundy marina with Heather in tow. Vicki and her Belgian husband, Wim, and family, together with Heather's other two daughters, are now all living in close reach of Heather and John's home in North Bundaberg, while Kindred Spirit is berthed in the Mary River.

We have added a new dive compressor to our diving arsenal we first bought a couple of years ago before the bad accident up the Coomera River and Covid. Although we have had PADI diving instruction and experience we soon realised that having tanks and BCDs alone wasn't much use if the dive tanks were emptied after a single day's diving. The new Italian Nardi compressor should fix that, although it is heavy, expensive and difficult to fit in, even in Sundari's capacious space.

Australia's Great Barrier Reef has come under increasing strain over the last few decades, because of a number of assaults on its existence, particularly siltation from eroded rivers on the mainland, polluted runoff, overfishing, mining threats and more recently coral bleaching episodes due to climate change. Australia's conservative federal government, as well as Queensland's Labour government, are reluctant to tackle the root causes of the deterioration in one of the world's great wonders as it means head on conflict with powerful vested commercial interests.

Now, Unesco has finally had enough and is ready to delist the Reef from World Heritage listing. Political machinations are afoot to try and browbeat or bribe Unesco's Committee to avoid delisting because of the expected negative effect on the tourism industry, which at the moment is almost entirely local, but normally one of Australia's primary international tourist attractions.

The primary issue is the Coalition government's reluctance to show any recognition or responsibility for Australia's woeful CO2 emissions. It's not that the reef will be any better off if Oz does more to reduce emissions all by itself, but the more countries that take the problem seriously might just make a difference.....and it's not just the Great Barrier Reef's future at stake.

Strangely, the southern reefs (the Great Barrier Reef is not a single reef, but a huge patchwork of separate reefs, some longer or wider than others, stretching from lonely Lady Elliott island, 50 miles from where we are anchored now,** right up to near the Fly River mouth of PNG in the Torres Strait), have not been as badly damaged as the northern reefs. This is because they are in cooler oceanic waters, so less affected by warming episodes caused by climate change and generally further from the mainland, so less affected by pollution and siltation from rivers. We shall see how the dive sites we visit compare to the other lovely coral reef areas we have been to over the years and how the reefs we see along the Queensland coast compare to what we remember from the four long sailing trips we have made up this coast in the past.

As for an update on the nasty virus, since we arrived in Bundaberg a couple of weeks ago, the chickens have come home to roost over Australia's sluggish vaccine rollout. The Delta variant has managed to slip out of the extensive hotel quarantine barriers in more than one state, prompting Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Darwin in quick succession to lock down for a few days (Sydney for 2 weeks). It hasn't affected us but of course it's another reminder of just how our lives are still dominated by the pandemic. Update as of 18th July, Sydney's lockdown has been extended, Brisbane's, Perth's and Darwin's stopped quickly, Melbourne now shut again after transmission from NSW.



Beerwah, Coonowrin and Ngungun, 3 of the Sunshine Coast's Glasshouse Mountains as we sail up the coast of Bribie Island



Arrival at Double Island Point near the Wide Bay Bar



Anchored at the North White Cliffs with Rosie and Mike on Shakti, half way up the sheltered side of Fraser Island.



Lake McKenzie, one of the dozen or so perched lakes on Fraser Island, with crystal clear water and white sand beaches.

Photo shows Sundari at our allocated mooring location with Lamb Island / Nguduroo in the background. North Stradbroke island, also known as Straddie or Minjerribah, is in the far distance.

We are anchored back again in the sheltered passage between Karragarrra and Lamb Islands in Southern Moreton Bay. We are waiting for a mooring to be dropped near where we are anchored so we can save on marina fees when we want to get off the boat and go roaming, something that has been curtailed so frequently since the spread of the nasty virus.

We still haven't had vaccinations yet, although we can now book them up. There is a lot of concern in Oz about the vaccine rollout and there has been increasing pressure to open up Australia's borders once the vaccine take up has reached the majority of the population, something that might not take place until mid next year. All Australian states and territories are now freely open to each other and to New Zealand, while NZ has opened a bubble with the Cook Islands. Soon to be added will be Niue. Many Indian origin Australians meanwhile have been stuck in Covid hell in India, mostly having flown there to look after sick older relatives and now not able to easily return to Australia.

We have bought a small plot of land just up from the Lamb Island jetty. Lamb is the second smallest island of the four SMBI islands, lying just to the north of us in this anchorage. The section doesn't have anything on it, but grass! However it is flat and only 4 minutes walk from the jetty with fencing in place on 3 sides. Sundari's mooring is almost visible from the section and certainly very accessible. We will probably use the section for the next few years just to store surplus stuff from Sundari. We will build a shed on it like the one we built on our 2 acre plot in Northland's Takahue Valley, but make it stronger as that one blew down in a storm while we were circumnavigating! We may build a cabin or even a small house later if we feel inclined to do so.



Lamb Island from the air. The jetty where the ferries come alongside is easily visible in the foreground. The small section we are buying is just up the main road from the jetty.

Lamb's other (indigenous) name is Nguduroo, similar to Tutukaka's nearest village neighbour of Ngunguru in Northland, but there isn't any connection. Nguduroo is the Quandamooka name for paperbarks, the characteristic tree all over swampy, low lying parts of Australia. The whole Moreton Bay area was once Quandamooka country before their numbers were decimated after the colonisation and establishment of the Brisbane area in the early nineteenth century. The remaining Quandamooka people recently gained native title to the huge sand island that is just to the east of us, called 'Straddie' by most Aussies, but Minjerribah by the indigenous people. Their descendants, who live in and around Dunwich in the north of North Stradbroke/Minjerribah, now manage with Queensland National Park staff the major part of the island, which is incorporated into the Naree Budjong Djara National Park. Their relatives also now own and manage most of Mulgumpin / Moreton Island, the other huge sand island to the north of Straddie that protects Moreton Bay from ocean swells. Much of the Southern Moreton Bay waters are part of the Moreton Bay Marine Park, although our experience is that the dugongs, dolphins and turtles that we see elsewhere keep away from this channel because of the regular ferry traffic.

The four populated islands of Southern Moreton Bay, Russell, the largest, Macleay, Lamb and Karragarra are effectively suburban extensions of Redland City, the huge sprawling residential district on Brisbane's southern flanks and which separates Brisbane from the expanse of the Gold Coast further south. The islands have had a chequered history. Those Qandamooka inhabitants who had survived hostility from British colonists and imported diseases were rounded up and dumped into settlements on North Stradbroke, leaving the islands open to exploitation. The bigger forest trees were chopped down and the land turned into farmland, supplying food to Brisbane via ferry services from the Brisbane River. North Stradbroke drew attention from sand miners who stripped the delicate dune vegetation and dug up the stikingly white sand (now stopped). Isolation meant farming was marginal and by the 1970s, as Brisbane spread ever outwards, the islands were all subdivided into residential plots and sold off to unsuspecting buyers in what became known as the Russell Island land scams.

Buyers were told by unscrupulous real estate agents, aided by corrupt Queensland state government officials, that a bridge was going to be built across from the mainland. They weren't told that many of the plots being sold were under water at high tide or flooded in the rainy season. The poor reputation the islands gained meant that land prices have remained relatively low so close to Brisbane. There is still no bridge in sight, but the four islands are connected to the mainland by frequent fast passenger and vehicle ferries. Foot passengers or cyclists can travel for free between any of the four islands but have to pay to get to the mainland.

Next week, the winds look good for a reasonable passage north up through Moreton Bay and around the east of Fraser Island and to the first of the Barrier reef cays, Lady Elliott, Musgrave, Fitzroy, Heron, Masthead and North West islands, about two days sailing north. We'll leave any more landlubber stuff until we sail back down the coast again at the end of the tropical sailing season.



Top left: not posh, just a patch of flat grass- Sundari's extra cupboard;
Top right: the main road on Lamb Island on a busy weekday;
Middle left: Nguduroo = paperbark swamp on Lamb Island;
Midle right: Sundari on its new mooring opposite Lamb Island's jetty;
Bottom left: The old Lamb island shed at the jetty;
Bottom right: fast passenger cat the only way from Macleay island to the mainland.



Series of photos taken at the Karragarra anchorage showing the sequence of shots of the so-called "super blood moon" as it went through a total lunar eclipse. As the full moon went into Earth's shadow, light filtered around and through Earth's atmosphere gave it a red tinge. The last time we saw this phenomonen was in Hobart at the start of our Feb 2018 cycle ride through to Adelaide.

Photo shows the wild, east coast of South Stradbroke on a Labour Day holiday weekend - no-one to be seen as menacing black clouds sweep in from an offshore trough. The local ospreys love the breeze, though!

We are back on Sundari after the long trip back to Queensland from Adelaide and have managed to extricate ourselves from the very sheltered Hope Island (Gold Coast) marina just in time to be met with wet, cool and blustery conditions at anchor off South Stradbroke Island.

Much of our time down south was involved in meeting up with old friends: Kate and Gordon in Port Elliott, from our time in Darwin in the late 1990s, Peter and Jenny, Catherine and Peter, Jo and Arnold, all yachtie circumnavigator friends living in Adelaide. Along the Murumbidgee, we caught up with Andrew and Clare, on their way over to the Kimberley in their camper, having no access to their yacht Eye Candy, which is still stranded in a boatyard in Vanuatu. In the Hunter Valley, we dropped in on more circumnavigators, now ardent hikers and bikers, Kerry and Bruce. Finally, we met up with Ralph on his catamaran, El Misti, in Tweed Heads, making his way north after a successful sail out to Lord Howe Island.



Almost a repeat of a photo taken in April 2018! Jo, Geoff, Al, Catherine, Arnold and Peter around the lunch table - a meeting of old circumnavigators. Jo and Arnold got back to Oz first, sold their yacht, "Just Jane" and then, bored, bought another one, currently berthed in Scarborough marina, Brisbane. Catherine and Peter sold their catamaran, "The Southern Cross" fortuitously just before Covid and have plenty of family responsibilities to keep them occupied. Also in Adelaide are Jenny and Peter, who also circumnavigated and still have their steel yacht, "Tiaki" berthed nearby.


Our trip back followed the lower Murray River, and then the Murumbidgee, over the Divide to Kangaroo Valley just south of Wollongong, through Sydney, to Maitland on the Hunter, up on to the New England table land through Tamworth and Armidale and then back to the coast via Guy Fawkes and Dorrigo National Parks.



Pelicans, at lock 4 on the River Murray, catch stunned fish as they emerge downstream through the weir. There was plenty of water in Australia's longest and most important river after La Nina rains, but the distribution of water remains highly contentious.



Many of the grain silos in NSW and southern Queensland have been painted with murals. This one was spotted along the Murray with river themed paintings.



River red gums line both the Murray and the Murumbidgee (pictured here) - they are lovely trees that grow big, but only if they can replensih their roots in regular floods.



Ebor Falls in Guy Fawkes National Park between Armidale and the coast. Plenty of water in all these rivers because of heavy rain this year.



Alison hiding behind a rainfrest buttress in Dorrigo National Park.

Everybody's lives here are still under the grip of the nasty virus, even if it is just a reluctance to go interstate. The roads and campsites have been busy everywhere but generally only people from that state. It seems remarkable that in 7 weeks and over 6,000 km that we were the only Queensland registered vehicle we saw anywhere south of the border. The trans Tasman bubble has started up with some unease. The hype was that it would boost tourism on both sides of the ditch, but it just seems to have been a boon for families split up because of Covid restrictions.

We are hoping to sail north as soon as we can, but still have sails to put back after the re-rigging we did in February as well as install a new bank of solar panels. How far will we get before the next cyclone season? Who knows, but it's not going to be anywhere else other than the Queensland coast. P.N.G. is in a mess, the Solomons, Vanuatu, New Cal., Samoa, Tonga, Niue and the Cooks are all closed, while Fiji has just fell foul of a superspreader event at a Suva wedding after near zero transmission over the last year. Indonesia opens and closes to yachts like a yoyo, Malaysia has ordered all yachties to leave if they cannot extend their visas and Thailand is now demanding 14 days in quarantine and a $5,000 entry fee! Yikes!



Wildlife is always a delight across Oz. From the top left, an NZ sea lion relaxing by the lower Murray weir at Goolwa, a bevy of wood swallows at Lake Bundeena, Mr and Mrs orange bellied parrot, an emu in the Mallee, sulfur crested cocky by the van near Wollongong, a wombat at Kangaroo valley, a wedge tailed eagle in Guy Fawkes NP, koala along the lower Glenelg River.