Hinchinbrook Island

Hinchinbrook Island is a large island National Park, with a very small resort at one end and hiking trails with a few campsites.

Tuesday
We needed to drive south 2.5 hours to Cardwell to catch the 9am ferry to the island, so we had to get up at 6am. We were the only passengers on the ferry, so the captain, Phil, and Emma gave us a nice introduction to the island. There is a colony of about 300 Dugongs at the island. These are almost extinct and thus protected. We saw some surfacing in front of the boat, so Phil stopped for about 15 minutes to let them pass and we got a good look at them, although at a fair distance. They surface only long enough to breath, so I didn’t get any photos. We also saw some turtles and Garfish in the water. The Garfish are long thin fish that jump out of the water and skim along with only their tails touching the water, leaping again and again into the air.

Phil giving Tara a spin at the wheel of the ferry


Phil remarked that the weather had been stormy for quite a while and this was the first sunny calm day. At the dock, he introduced us to Sly, a huge Grouper that has lived there for 22 years. They feed him a couple 1 lb fish each day. This guy is huge, over 300 lbs and six feet long.
(picture of Sly)

Dave the manager met us at the dock and gave us a short tour and explained that the object here is to relax. We have Beach Cabin #1, the closest to the resort, yet far enough away to be quite private.

We swam in the pool, and later tried the sea kayaks. Unfortunately, a wave caught Kate’s boat and pushed it hard against her leg, cutting her shin and banging up her ankles. Dave provided first aid. The food here is first rate. There is only one other couple here that we have seen. I imagine we are getting the treatment of Double Island for 1/100th the cost.


Wednesday
We decided to skip the snorkel trip due to Kate’s leg, but she was up for a hike. They have a ferry tour that took us through the mangrove estuary. This is full of salt water crocodiles. You wouldn’t want to swim here, as they grow to 5 meters long! But they are shy and hide when they hear the boat coming so we didn’t see any. They dropped us at a dock and a short hike across the island to a beautiful, isolated beach. This is the non-crocodile, non-stinger side of the island. But we are still too cautious to venture far into the water. So we collected shells for an hour then went back to the boat.
Kate’s leg was feeling good, so we opted to get off at the Macushla camping area and took the 5km hike back to the resort. We had backpack lunches, so we ate those at the first beach we came to (on the crocodile side, so I was on the lookout but saw nothing). About 1km later, we were back on the “safe” side of the island. We had another 2km long beach all to ourselves to explore. We tried some body surfing although there really weren’t any breakers thanks to the great weather. The water was literally as warm as the air, about 85 degrees. At 4pm, we did the final 1km walk through a tropical forest with several micro climates.

After reaching our cabin, we went swimming in the pool for at least another hour, then ate dinner at 7:30. It is like we have the whole resort and island to ourselves. We all agree that this is probably the highlight of our trip.

Thursday
A family had sailed their boat to the island, so Tara played with a girl about her age in the pool for a while. Meanwhile Kate and I took a two-man kayak out. The weather is even calmer today, so we went out around the point. We found ourselves surrounded by sea turtles. They were surfacing within a few feet of the kayak. Unfortunately, I hadn’t brought the waterproof camera.

The resort's beach was used in the movie "Nim's Island"

After lunch, Tara and Kate returned to the pool. I took a mask down to the beach, but there was something out in the water, probably just a turtle, but I couldn’t bring myself to risk the stingers, crocs, and sharks on our last day.

We checked out at 3pm, and since there were no other passengers, the ferry left immediately. We saw a school of 6 Garfish skimming along the water, a large sailboat from Newport (probably Rhode Island). Phil told us that the movie “Nim’s Island” (coming out April 4th) was shot on Hinchinbrook, so that is definitely something we will have to go see.

In Cairns, we did our last minute souvenir shopping, and found a Mexican restaurant for dinner. Very rare for Australia, but surprisingly good. I was finally able to find an Outback hat just as the store closed.

We stayed in a hotel very close to the airport, but got to bed at about 11pm, setting the alarm for 4:30am.

Friday
We got to the airport on time, but went to the domestic terminal thinking that is were a flight to Sydney would be. However, our flight was from the International terminal because it is a connection to international flights. We were still on time, just at the back of the line as they boarded.

Qantas Dream Time plane

We got up at 4:30am and were back in Portland at 5pm the same day, thanks to the international date line. Jet lag will not be kind to us, however.

Rain greets us at PDX

Epilog
I took 885 photos in Australia. It took about 2 hours just to upload the photos to my computer. It will take me at least a week to get the slide show up on Picasa.