Biking Under The Radar

My mountain biking fitness is gradually improving, so today Owen took me to tackle a new challenge: the Under The Radar trail at Cape Pallarenda.

Under the Radar is the white dotted trail above

We had kayaked near here the other day, and it would to be interesting to see the area from a different perspective.

We returned to the carpark via the Lagoon Trail (pink on the map) for about a 16km round-trip. This track passed some flat patches which are sometimes wet and home to lots of birdlife, but which were pretty dry salt flats when we passed them.

I didn’t manage to get many photos from the ride, but I really enjoyed the track – even if I did get a bit too hot by the end and felt a little unwell.

 Still, an ice cream on the Strand afterwards helps to fix a bit of overheating nicely :)

Townsville Sea Kayaking

A couple of weeks ago I went out kayaking on the local Ross River. This time Owen and I headed out to Pallarenda to go sea kayaking.

Putting into the water in Rowes Bay, we paddled off to the north and around the coastline to the west, pulling up again on Shelley Beach.

The red star on the right is the start/finish, the red star at the top is the furthest point we paddled to.

Approaching the 'corner' of the coastline

Taking just a short break as the sun was so hot once off the water, we admired the view briefly from the sparse shade of a twiggy tree before returning to our starting point.

The view to Magnetic Island

A brief but fun little adventure :)

Gentle Kayaking on the Ross River

I’ve been going mountain biking a bit recently with a friend who I met through sailing, and we have obviously been chatting during our rides. This has led to the discovery of more interests in common, including kayaking.

Owen had a spare kayak, and I asked if I could borrow it for a trip to Magnetic Island I hope to make with another friend in the future. Being safety-minded, Owen wouldn’t let me out on the sea in the kayak without being sure that I was competent. I didn’t mind too much, as I respected him taking responsibility in this way, but it was a little frustrating that he didn’t believe I could kayak properly…

Meeting up at his place early in the morning so that we would have the best chance to see wildlife, we got the kayaks strapped onto his trolley wheels and walked them down the suburban roads to the riverway path, and along to a suitable launch site.

Launching under a road bridge between two weirs about 4kms apart, we had a decent flat expanse of river to explore. Heading upriver initially, we kayaked past the beautiful waterlilies hosting little jacana birds.

A jacana from further downstrem

We saw river turtles basking on logs.

I spotted some magpie geese with their tiny brown goslings – unfortunately the little goslings didn’t show too well as my waterproof camera doesn’t perform well in low light, but you can just about make them out as tiny brown blobs at the water's edge, around the feet of the rearmost goose.

Being early, wallabies hadn’t yet been disturbed and they watched us with caution from the riverbank.

We watched egrets fishing

And then we were at the upriver weir.

More beautiful water flowers were here

We crossed to the other riverbank for the downstream journey, to see what else we could spot.

In the end though competitive nature got the best of us, and we paddled back down to the bridge at ‘a fitness pace’. Having reached the bridge in good style, Owen suggested that we carry on down to the other weir then back, as that way I would have paddled 8km and he would feel better about my ability to paddle to Maggie Island. I think that he was a bit miffed I had been able to keep up with him and that he wanted another chance to beat me ;)

At the downstream weir there so many little toad- or froglets – I hope they weren't the introduced cane toads that have such a devastating effect on the native wildlife, although I fear that they were.

There was also a lot of litter that had gathered there, and Owen collected a lot to clear it from the river. A good deed indeed! That done, we returned to our start point and took the kayaks back. What a lovely morning :)

In Pictures: Snorkelling Moreton Island

Labour Day weekend marked the anniversary of our Australian immigration. We went to (a very busy!) Moreton Island, Brisbane, for some snorkelling along the wreck reefs. On the ferry back to the mainland, we were also treated to the truly awesome sight of migrating humpback whales:

[Rather than scrolling down, you might prefer to click on the first image to open the pictures, then click through them]

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!