Day Cruising to Magnetic Island

I have been sailing a bit lately on a Catalina 400 named Freya, and have even crewed for Magnetic Island Race Week, a week-long yacht regatta based on Magnetic Island. 

Freya’s owner sails over to Magnetic Island most Sundays, and I was invited to go this Sunday. And so myself and another Freya regular, my new mountain biking friend from yesterday, joined the owner to help him sail over to Magnetic Island. I have visited this beautiful place a few times now, but had previously always got there by ferry. It would be fun to get there by wind power.

After leaving the harbour and getting all the sails up and set, the skipper passed the helm over to me – meaning I got to steer the yacht. It was my first time doing this on a yacht, and I was surprised at how difficult it was. You are constantly having to make adjustments to your steering to compensate for the fact that the slight gusting or dropping off of the wind, and the changes in waves and currents, all constantly influence the direction the yacht is heading. You have to compensate for all of these factors to maintain the direction you want to head in, and to make the sails power the boat effectively. Hence the look of serious concentration on my face!

We sailed north out of Townsville, and around the east side of Magnetic Island. We rounded the island anticlockwise, and after sailing as far around as Horseshoe Bay on the northern side of the island, we changed direction and headed back to Radical Bay (with the red label) to drop anchor for a while.

It was a pretty windy day so we were all working to do this – the skipper had taken back the helm by this point, and Owen and I were working hard on the winches to manage the sails.

Radical Bay was relatively sheltered, with just a small swell, and we anchored up for lunch and leisure. While the skipper stayed on board to just enjoy being on his boat, us crew jumped into the sea for some swimming and cooling down. It was so pleasant to float about in a bay on a tropical island, admiring the scenery and enjoying the beautiful day. 

I swam around getting a few pictures of Freya before getting out to dry off ready for lunch.

From the boat, we could see these fish hanging around hoping for a snack.

Fish weren’t the only ones hoping for a snack – the resident Brahminy Kites also know how to work the yachty crowd for food. They weren’t disappointed, as our skipper had brought along some meat specially for them. 

I mostly don’t condone feeding wild animals, but these kites are mainly scavengers and weren’t coming too close to humans (and even then were only approaching the yachts) so I don’t think that it’s a big problem. It was certainly fantastic to watch them circling round the yacht, and see them catching their lunch in mid-air!

During our own lunch, I managed to stub my little toe really hard against the side of the yacht's cabin. I was only walking slowly along, but the swaying of the boat at anchor was just enough to alter my balance enough that I kicked the side - really hard!! My toe bruised and swelled up straightaway, that's gonna hurt for a while...  The swaying at anchor also made me a little seasick, but such is the price we pay for adventure :)

We sailed back to Townsville after lunch, and despite sickness and injury I felt I'd had a great a day :)


On later investigation, it turned out I had banged my toe so hard I had dislocated it - no wonder it hurt so much!

Hitting the Townsville Trails

Today I got take my little yellow mountain bike out for the first time in a while.

A friend I met while sailing was talking about cycling, and so I joined in the conversation. We got chatting about mountain biking, and he invited me to come with him sometime – he likes to have company on the trail, and also likes to have the safety factor of a buddy in case anything happens. I warned him that I wasn’t very good, and when he said he was cool with taking a novice I jumped at the chance.

Trail map

Meeting at his place in the morning to beat the worst of the heat, we cycled off to the local Douglas Mountain Bike Reserve Trails.

Taking on the easy green route, called Easy Street, I struggled to keep up all the way to the top. With plenty of tight bends, rocky bits, small easy roll overs and drop offs, this trail was not hugely technically demanding, but definitely the right level for me to start with.

Owen pointing out other routes

I found it tough going, but with practice I hope to get better :)

The above picture is the only photo I got of the trail itself, but you can see a video of this easy route here if you are interested. 

FNQ Road Trip Planning!

Beforehand I was really busy researching plans for a road trip from Townsville, so that when my friend from home and her 2 kids arrived for their visit, they would already have ideas for what to do - and could spend their time here carrying out plans, not making them!

A lot of time and effort went into these plans, so it seemed a shame to just delete them. Instead, I thought I would post them up here so that they can maybe help someone else who is planning something similar. I have edited it slightly so that it makes sense for here, and to reflect what we did if it differed a lot from the plan. Of course none of this is exhaustive - there are always more options!

Far North Queensland Road Trip – an example itinerary (with costings where possible)

Just a little note about the prices I’m quoting – most places say that 16 is the adult/child age boundary, but some say 14. They were correct at the time of writing...

Day 1: Townsville to the Cassowary Coast (Mission Beach or Kurramine Beach)

Leave Townsville in the morning, stop off on the way to get ice cream at Frosty Mango!

Continue on to see the Wallaman Falls – the tallest single-drop waterfall in Australia, and in the World Heritage listed Wet Tropics region. This is a bit further along from Trebonne on the map above. We’ll be there at the best time of year for visiting, and can go for a short walk to view the falls and maybe see some wildlife, perhaps even a platypus.

Head back to the highway and carry on north: Cardwell is a good spot to stop for a coffee if needed, lunch or a snack if that’s the time we are there, and it has a bit of a walkway with nice views of Hinchinbrook Island for stretching our legs if we want.

Tully is one of the spots in Australia that claims to be the wettest (have the highest rainfall). Australia likes ‘Big Things’, and Tully has a big welly boot – The Golden Gumboot – to mark the heights of its floods. It’s worth a quick look as it only takes 5 mins.

Camp at the Cassowary Coast. Council camp sites there are $17 total for 1 night. Mission Beach or Kurrimine Beach sites are best as they have hot water, showers and toilets, and BBQs if we want to cook our own food. The 2 places are near to each other, so wherever we stay we can visit both: Mission Beach has 14km of beach, while Kurrimine Beach is the place where the Reef is closest to the shore – King Reef is only 800m away!! You register on arrival for these, so we can potentially look at both and decide which we prefer. (These sites were full when we arrived, so we camped at the Jackaroo Hostel instead.)

Day 2: Cassowary Coast to Cairns

Get up at a reasonable time, shower and pack up. Breakfast could either be food we’ve brought with us, or we could have brekkie at a cafe.

Enjoy Mission Beach for a while, and maybe snorkel near the Great Barrier Reef from Kurrimine Beach!

Depending on how long we want to stay around there, we could have lunch in the area, and leave at around 2pm to make sure we get to Cairns before dark, or we could travel on a bit further before stopping for lunch. If time allows, we should take in the Babinda Boulders on the way, as it’s another beautiful and free thing to do!

I also found another National Park as a different option, Mount Hypipamee National Park. It has an old volcanic crater that is now a lagoon, with walking paths and waterfalls etc. And apparently, there are tree kangaroos there!! You can camp there, so it could be another overnight spot either on the way north or on the return journey south. (...we didn't do this)

Check into accommodation and head into Cairns to see the night markets. Have dinner either in Cairns or cook ourselves.

Accommodation options for Cairns includes YHA or camping. We ended up camping at the Cairns Holiday Park. It was pretty good with all the facilities you need, and well situated for doing stuff around the city.

Day 3: Cairns and around, 2-3 days probably

Cairns city doesn’t have much to see in terms of sights, but it might be good to have a day there to check out all options for booking trips to the reef (if we haven’t already done so in advance). If more beaches are required we can drive out to Palm Cove for a bit. 

 

There is a free outdoor pool on the Esplanade we could use if we wanted some time actually in Cairns. There are also the night markets to visit if we didn’t see these on the first evening, these are touristy and have some fun stuff to see.

From Cairns, there are several things to do:

1. The Kuranda Scenic Railway and Skyrail: $110 each ($55 for Child). If this is too expensive, we can drive to the same place as the train goes and try to see as much as possible that is similar to what you would get on the train. There is also the option to do just the train ride, and I can meet you at the top and drive us back after we've had a look around Kuranda.

2. Boat trips and snorkelling to see the Great Barrier Reef and all the fish and turtles etc: it is expensive to go out deeper into the reef, which would be the best parts to see. The cheapest way to see the reef is if we get a boat to Green Island, $88 each ($44 for Child), then do our own snorkelling for free from the beaches there. You can also book paid-for snorkel tours from this island that take you to see more of the corals etc, $44 each ($29 for Child). To go to the reef proper, I haven’t yet been able to find a trip for less than hundreds of dollars each.

3. Some of the aboriginal cultural experiences are near Cairns: Tjapukai is $60 each 

(We did 1 & 2 above, but not 3)

Day ~5-6: Port Douglas and Daintree – can be done as day trips, or as more road trip if we want to keep going :)

Port Douglas isn’t too far from Cairns, and it’s a beautiful drive where the road hugs the coastline, with plenty of places that you just want to stop at and admire the view. Port Douglas itself is pretty and has plenty of tourist shops, plus an impressive looking YHA, and a beach called Four Mile Beach.

We could do this as either a day trip from Cairns if we didn’t want to travel much further, or it could be the next part of the road trip, either staying in/near Port Douglas overnight or carrying on further.

From PD, if we decide not to road trip any further then we can still do a 1 hour river cruise up at Daintree to see crocodiles and other wildlife - this trip was only $25 per adult when I did it before Christmas, so I don’t think it will have gone up by much, if at all, since then. (This is also possible as day trip from Cairns if we stop road tripping there)

That area is also in the Daintree Rainforest, which is the largest rainforest in Australia, and yet another World Heritage Site! (After the Reef, and the Wet Tropics). The cheapest way to visit the rainforest seems to be via Mossman, which has the Mossman Gorge. You can do self-guided walks and swim in the water holes, and it looks beautiful. There is also the opportunity to do an Aboriginal experience here, $60 each again ($30 for Child) as an alternative to the one at Cairns.  

The rainforest might need a day of its own, in which case we could stay at Port Douglas another night, or possibly stay at Daintree. (I can’t find much about accommodation in Daintree online, but I’m sure when I was there I saw hostels or campsites).

(We didn't go to Port Douglas or, unfortunately, Mossman Gorge, but did spot crocodiles on the Daintree before continuing to Cape Tribulation on Day 5)

Day ~7 onwards: Cape Tribulation

Cape Tribulation looks fun to get to, it involves taking the Daintree River Ferry, tropical Australia’s only cable ferry apparently… This area just looks stunning, and here the Daintree Rainforest meets the Great Barrier Reef. You can do things like kayaking trips to explore, and possibly see turtles, dolphins, dugongs etc ($85, $60 for Child). There is ziplining in the jungle for $95 each. There is also Captain Cook history as he ran his boat aground near there, before going on to what is now Cooktown to fix it up again.

For free, there are boardwalks with information boards taking you through the rainforest/mangroves, with loads of wildlife to see and the evolution of land plants in evidence as some of the forest is from the prehistoric Gondwana super-continent (pretty WOW!)

There’s probably more to do as well, as I’ve seen Cape Trib advertised as a destination for travellers in loads of places. There seem to be plenty of camping options there, and there is also a YHA. PKs Jungle Village offers camping as an option, it also seems to have a good range of excursions on offer, and can help with making bookings as there is no mobile phone reception in Cape Trib. 

Heading back to Townsville

Driving back from Port Douglas or Cairns, and probably Cape Tribulation, is do-able in 1 day, but we might want to break the journey somewhere along the way. Of course, if we have the money and there was something we feel we missed out on, we could break the journey anyway!