A Year Down Under

After crossing the Pacific it seemed challenging to find an appropriate blog post to match the adventure we’d just experienced. Now a year has passed and reflecting back we’ve explored quite a bit of Queensland, which is just a small corner of a vast country.

We acquired two Husqvarna 650 dual-sport motorcycles to explore on land. AirBnB provided a lovely Spanish Hacienda in the middle of the Queensland hinterland, and some beautiful motorcycling roads in north New South Wales.

We ventured back to the ocean and found Moreton Bay just outside of Brisbane provides a great escape from the city-life as we’ve enjoyed many evenings anchored at Moreton and North Stradbroke Islands.

Passing Port of Brisbane we noticed a N68 loaded for transport.

We ventured to the southern most part of the Great Barrier Reef and it exceeded all our expectations with fantastic diving and incredible anchorages. We spent several days anchored inside Lady Musgrave and Fitzroy Reefs, which provide anchorage in 20 feet of water 100 miles offshore with barely the reef to protect from the ocean swells. At Lady Musgrave we met friends from Brisbane onboard Ocean Cat, which provided us great diving companionship as well as fresh line-caught fish.

We shared Fitzroy anchorage and a bottle of champagne with Dave who is single handing Elangani after leaving Southern California 27 years ago.

From Fitzroy Reef we stopped in Bundaberg and met the owners of N62 Bee (ex-Wingflight), second to the last N62, and the first N62 we looked at; and like revisiting your first love, it looked as beautiful as we remembered.

From Bundaberg we moved down the inside passage of Frazer Island and found all of nature’s beauty anchored just off Kingfisher resort.

We conclude 2014 twenty miles south of Brisbane anchored inside South Stradbroke Island at Jumpinpin Pass, which again reminds us how diverse and beautiful Australia can be, and how lucky we are to be able to explore here.