Trekkin Kakadu to Cooktown July 20 2021 start

Day 86 – Wednesday 13^th October 2021 – ? Km

Out of bed before 6am, breakfast & on the road by 6.50am & into the Gladstone Marina. We arrive at the Curtis Ferry Terminal around 7.20am & organise ourselves for a morning on the barge doing deliveries to the outlying islands of Gladstone Harbour. We wait for most of the cars to be loaded before walking on to the barge & climbing the stairs to the top bridge deck. It is interesting looking at all the working boats & pleasure boats when we are leaving the confines of the marina. As we enter the harbour we pass close to a fully laden coal ship, it is a massive ship & very wide.

There are a number of small islands that we pass, some with houses on them. Turtle Island is owned by a wealthy Singapore businessman we are told by one of the crew. The shipping leads twist & turn around the many sandbars & sometimes we see sand churned up behind the barge, the barge only draws one metre when loaded. The voyage across this large harbour is very pleasant with flat seas & a gentle wind, the temperature is very nice.

Our first stop is at the small settlement of Farmers Point on the northern tip of Facing Island. There are a number of cars on the beach & the barge noses into the beach & lowers the ramp onto the sand. There are some National Parks people, Maritime Services people & a group of volunteers in a small convoy of cars doing a beach clean-up before turtle nesting season starts.

Our next stop is across the channel at the small township of South End, surprisingly on the south end of Curtis Island. Again there are people & cars waiting for the barge to arrive, a few cars get off & a few cars load on. One of the channel markers between the two islands has a very large Osprey nest on it with an Osprey nearby.

The voyage back is just as pleasant & interesting seeing everything from a different side. The tide is now low & we stop at Panorama Point, the northern tip of Quoin Island to pick up a car from the sandbar that is now exposed at low tide. We have a great view of the port foreshores as we come back in & all of the terminals & wharves for handling the different types of commodities that are shipped from here. We arrive back at the Curtis Ferry terminal around 10.30am and wait for the cars to unload before we walk off. A thoroughly enjoyable boat trip, very reasonably priced & well worthwhile.

It is only a short drive around to Spinnaker Park so that is next on our agenda, we stop at the Spinnaker café & have an early lunch. A seafood platter again (for a change), it is delicious. We are entertained by the Ibis & Blue Cheeked Honeyeaters looking for scraps off the tables after people leave them. We have great views of the harbour & watch a Liquefied Natural Gas ship being guided out by some tugboats. Next on the agenda is a walk around the garden at the end of the peninsula. The path is very wide & well formed & it takes us past a large pond covered in flowering water lilies, both pink & blue colours, it is stunning, however, as always, the photos do not do it any justice. We spot a Willie Wagtail gathering nesting supplies on the branch of a paperbark tree.

We drive around to the lookout on Auckland Hill, this has great views back down on to the marina, Spinnaker Park & the nearby docks on the harbour shores. Next we take the short trip down the hill to James Cook Park & have a walk around this rejuvenated dock area. The new cruise ship terminal looks great as does the surrounding foreshore parkland with beautiful sitting & BBQ shelters plus a lovely path along the foreshore. The park also has scattered remnants of the port, such as old lighthouses & lead lights. The Rotary Club has built a waterfall from the lookout on Auckland Hill down into the park & it is very nicely set off by the cascading red bougainvillea. While we are in the park we sit & watch as some tug boats pull a fully laden coal ship away from the dock & guide it on its way out the harbour. It is the same ship we saw this morning when we were on the barge, it was low tide then, it is near high tide now & the ship needs all the water it can get under its keel, they apparently draw 16 metres fully laden.

The old business district of Gladstone is next & a few of the beautiful old buildings remain. We walk around a little bit looking, but our pick is the grand old Grand Hotel with beautiful iron lacework along the 1^st floor verandas and a Widows Walk on the roof. It must have had great views of the harbour when it was built.

Our next stop is the Round Hill lookout in the middle of Gladstone, this has an amazing 360 degree of Gladstone & district. As we walk around the summit we read all of the signs that explain what all the features are & the various industrial complexes that surround the city. It is very interesting & we spend a long time slowly making our way around.

Back out to Tannum Sands & we drive back down to the Esplanade & stop at the beach to have a look. There is an amazing sculpture of a seahorse made from recycled metal on display in the park, it is very well made. The beach has a lone kite boarder foiling around the ocean, he makes it look very easy.

For dinner we walk along the foreshore path around one kilometre to the surf club & have a nice meal. I have a delicious seafood platter & Tereza has some very tasty lamb chops, washed down with some Corona beers. The walk back in the dark along the path is very pleasant and it is a nice way to finish another great day.