Okay. Now to the business at hand. After a great week visiting Yolanda, Evan and our gorgeous grandchildren in Cairns, Dianne and I headed south to the small town of Lucinda to prepare for our walk on Hinchinbrook Island. We'd known about the Thorsborne Trail for decades after our friends Ros and Ken Walsh hiked it with their two boys Alastair and James. They raved about the great time they had, so it was definitely something on our radar. Di was very keen to fit it into our itinerary for this big tour of Australia's east coast and we hauled our overnight hiking gear in the back of the car for almost three months to enable that to happen.
Getting to and from Hinchinbrook is relatively easy, but somewhat costly. It's $90 per person to catch the ferry across from Cardwell to Ramsay Bay at the northern end of the hike, and $50 per person for the ride from George Point at the southern end back across to Lucinda. We decided to stay the night at Lucinda beforehand, leave Ulysses and the Prado there and catch the bus up to Cardwell in the morning. The whole track is about 32 kilometres long. We planned to spend 3 nights on the island as Queensland National Parks' website says the following: "A minimum of three nights and four days is required to walk the trail from Ramsay Bay to George Point". We thought this sounded a bit generous, but not knowing the terrain, it seemed prudent to plan our walk according to the information provided.
Now is as good a time as any, I guess, for my customary diversion. As a migrant to Australia, it has always seemed a bit weird to me that individual states nominate, fund and administer what they call "National Parks" and the Federal Government has no role in this regard. Different cost and booking structures apply all over the place. It must be very difficult for overseas visitors to figure it all out.
"National Park" is such a grand title, such a grand idea - in fact The United States of America's best idea - yet so unrealised in this wonderful land of ours. In all the states we have visited - so every one apart from Western Australia - there are some magnificent National Parks worthy of the title. Unfortunately, there are also many that are not. I can't understand why we don't have a situation where states run "state parks", and the Federal Government looks after outstanding, iconic parks that are on a grand scale. It seems to be a historical thing to do with a strong desire for individual states to maintain independence in most things. However, if the Yanks (who are so obsessed with individual states' rights that they allow them to choose whether they execute citizens of the nation) can have a centralised National Parks system, as do many other large countries, why not Australia.
Whatever. Back to the topic, eh!
Whatever. Back to the topic, eh!
So, here's a map of the Thorsborne Trail, showing what we had ahead of us ...
Our little shuttle bus from Lucinda dropped us in plenty of time so we had a little wait. Di was so overwhelmed with joy at finally getting to set off on this hike (remember, bushwalking is probably Di's single most favourite activity in all the world) she had a little sniffle - note the handkerchief - while we waited ...
The ferry from Cardwell takes about an hour. It's a beautiful ride, at least in fine weather and that's what we got. Here's a picture of a couple of Brown Boobies that have just taken flight from a navigation buoy as we approached ...
Hinchinbrook Island is very mountainous, very beautiful and lies within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. In the picture below we are nearing the north end of the island ...
As we neared the maze of creeks that wend through the mangrove swamps where we would disembark, we passed this houseboat that was idling away the time ...
Into the mangroves and nearer still to the landing site the varied beauty of Hinchinbrook became even more apparent ...
Upon arrival, where there was once a ladder that one had to scramble up to get into the mangroves is now a lovely little jetty and ramp ...
I don't know what there was back in the day once you got into the mangroves, but now there is a great boardwalk to get you through to solid ground ...
At the end of the boardwalk the route used to go straight through the dunes on to the beach at Ramsay Bay, but now to protect the dunes the track has been diverted through a lovely bit of rainforest with a fascinating mix of trees for about a kilometre. One of the sights that captivated us was this root system of some sort of palm ...
Soon though one arrives on the golden sand of Ramsay Bay for a great view ...
At the end of the beach it's back into the forest, up over a hill, down the other side, past a creek, out of the forest ...
... and the camping area at Nina Bay ...
We stopped here for lunch and to admire the great paperbarks just to the right of where Di is standing ...
If you had caught an early afternoon ferry, or were simply doing a very leisurely trip, Nina Bay would be a lovely place to stop. There was a great variation in vegetation, including this wonderful, many-limbed tree ...
Actually, it's time for another diversion. The image of this tree in my mind triggered a literary memory deeply buried in my subconscious that I've been trying to dig up. I was sure that it was somehow was connected to Earle Birney who is probably my favourite poet. It took a while but then somehow it presented itself for harvesting. Maybe if I give you a couple of line fragments you will see why the memory switch was flicked and the light came on (however slowly, and dimly at first):
. . . . . . supple trees
unpruned and full of winding
honesties (like my darling Dianne!)
This sequence of words come from a love poem entitled "i think you are a whole city". Probably written sometime in the '60's I first read it in about 1973. It's quirky, experimental and I love it. Maybe you will too.
Okay, back on topic. After lunch it was off along the beach ...
... and back into the forest for a bit and on to the aptly-named Boulder Bay ...
Across the rocks we hopped - which Zavier and Asha would have loved - and then into the forest again to arrive - earlier than expected - at our camp for the night ...
We found a little niche for the tent ...
... just beside the lagoon ...
The water in the lagoon was just slightly brackish - not noticeable at all in cooking and, really, even palatable enough to drink straight up.
At each of the designated campsite areas there are secure boxes to store food in overnight so the native rats don't get into your precious victuals ...
We had a quite a bit of time to read, wash in the lagoon, walk along the beach and poke around and appreciate the ambience of the campsite. I made a sequence of photos of the trunk of a tree showing some of the different textures of bark ...
As I was wandering along the beach I came across a piece of coral that had found its way to shore, perhaps ripped from the ocean floor and tossed up on the sand by Cyclone Yasi in 2011. If you look closely you should be able to make out a small shell embedded in one of the pockets ...
The next morning we were up early and got a beautiful view across the beach towards the east. I tried to put together a panorama but it wouldn't work. This shot will give you an idea of what it was like ...
During the previous afternoon after arriving so early at camp, we spent some time looking at the map and the distance we still needed to cover and decided to shorten our trip by a day and walk to Mulligan Falls from Little Ramsay Bay - or at least see how things went with that idea in mind. Most of the second day's walk was through forest where we stopped occasionally to take photographs of interesting things. Here's a fungus on the forest floor ...
... and the weird, lattice-like, fat, finger-sized roots around the base of some unknown tree ...
... a scattering of butterfly wings (if you look closely at the right side of the photo you can see one that must have been on the ground longer than the others as it has lost its colour) ...
After some interesting creek crossing - interesting, not because of difficulty but because of the variation between rocky and swampy watercourses - before we knew it we emerged on Zoe Bay beach ...
We had an early lunch at the Zoe Bay camping area. This was a great spot and actually had a number of picnic tables at individual campsites. There was probably enough room here for up to about eight tents. After lunch we set off up the track past Zoe Falls and its wonderful swimming hole, which was about five minutes away from the camping area ...
From here the track followed the rocky stream bed of Zoe Creek for several hundred metres before crossing over and continuing beside the creek, occasionally crossing back and forth until reaching the saddle from whence it originates. Before I forget, I must mention that this was a wonderful, varied day of walking. From beaches, to swampy rainforest, to rocky stream bed, to a short section that - with its granite, Sheoaks, Grass Trees and Banksias - was quite like traipsing the peninsula at Freycinet National Park in Tasmania, it was just magic. We covered about 18 kilometres in just under 6 hours of walking, which we thought that wasn't too bad given that some of the route was a bit rough and we hadn't gotten much exercise over the past month.
Once we arrived at Mulligan Falls we set up the tent and headed off to the pool below the falls for a refreshing dip - sharing the water with quite a few inquisitive fish! They seemed to have no real fear of humans, perhaps because fishing is not permitted in the streams. When I went down to fill our water bottles, both that evening and again the next morning, the fish swam up to investigate - almost close enough to touch.
Walking all the way to Mulligan Falls from Little Ramsay Bay meant that we were left with a casual 7 kilometres to cover the next day. We had a number of easy creek crossings and then we were on the long, long beach of Mulligan Bay. Thankfully the sand was almost rock hard, making for very easy going ...
There is one creek crossing about halfway along the beach that might involve a wait if you arrived at a very high tide, but that was not an issue for us on this occasion.
Part of the way along the beach we passed this beautiful shell ...
... which fascinated me with the texture on its surface.
The next interesting sight was this skeletonized tree ...
Almost anti-climatically we arrive at the George Point campsite and ferry rendezvous ...
... where we waited to be picked up and taken back to the mainland.
Just to make sure that visitors aren't tempted to take a dip while waiting for the ferry the parks people had placed one of their ubiquitous ACHTUNG signs ...
We were rapt with the three days we spent on Hinchinbrook. However, had we known more about the nature of the trail we probably would have planned a bit differently. Options are generally a bit limited by the ferry timetabling. However, if you can organise your own transport to and from the island, your party is a fit, experienced group of walkers that are used to covering ground fairly quickly and aren't interested in doing side trips, then you might consider the following itinerary:
- organise an early crossing to the northern end of the track (there was a group that organised a 7:00 a.m. ferry on the day we went over)
- day one: walk to Little Ramsay Bay and have lunch, then continue to Zoe Bay
- day two: chill out at Zoe Bay, enjoying the swimming and mooching about the river and beach
- day three: walk to George Point and meet your pick-up craft. (Note: there would definitely be mobile coverage at George Point as it is directly across from Lucinda.)
Finally, one of the joys of being on Hinchinbrook was the feeling that, apart from the track itself and the low-key amenities at the campsites, the place was unaffected by people. Yes, like almost any coastal area in today's world, there was some sign of flotsam and jetsam. However, this was pretty minimal. And if the following evidence is anything to go by, people seemed to genuinely love the place and were happy to depart with images and leave the treasures in place for future visitors to enjoy ...
Well, that's about it folks. I hope you enjoyed reading about our trip on Hinchinbrook.
Cheers for now ...
