Day 72 Townsville to Port Douglas Well I take back to a degree what I said yesterday about there being nothing to see. Todays drive from Townsville to Port Douglas did produce some interesting scenery even though the journey took much longer than we expected. It was around 400 km which we reckoned would take about 5 hrs based on previous drives and the fact than the roads are single carriageway with a max speed of 100kph. What we hadn't reckoned on was the ...

Day 71 Whitsundays to Townsville Our last morning on Coral Trekker, and at least it had the grace to dawn bright and sunny especially as it wasn't much past dawn when we were all woken by Ian starting the engines - not that we'd had a lie in on any of the days. We were always up at around seven as it was too noisy to stay down below once the engines started, but it was even earlier today as two of the guys had a ferry to catch to Hamilton Island and then a pla...

Day 70 Whitsunday Islands Well a much better sleep last night so everyone is a bit perkier this morning. There had been quite a storm through the night which had started whilst we were having dinner and just continued through, not that I was aware of it as I was out for the count. Bill and I had swapped cabins and although this spare one is smaller than the other, if that's possible, it does at least have a little better ventilation and not the over powering sme...

Day 69 - Whitsundays You may have noticed that I have omitted the word cruising from the title as I'm not quite sure that this is what I would call a cruise. Don't get me wrong, the crew are great, the company good but the facilities aboard are definitely not of the cruise variety; it's all pretty basic and not what we expected at all. Sleep last night was in rather short supply to say the least. It was incredibly stuffy down below with no movement of air ...

Day 68 Cruising Whitsundays Breakfast by the pool this morning, lovely; temperature around 28deg and calm as a millpond out on the ocean and not too humid. Had an appointment to get my nails done so walked down to the town and left Bill to go buy a hat for sailing and to pack his bag. I didn't expect to find a nail technician in such a small place but a result as she was good and not as expensive as the ones I had se in Adelaide. That done we went to exchan...