Sunday 3rd to Friday 8th March 2019 – Back to Australia (via Hong Kong)

It is a long flight to or from Down Under which we’d already done three times in the last 18 months so we decided to break our journey. Neither of us had been to Hong Kong before and weren’t sure what to expect. A tiny apartment Airbnb in one of the tower blocks at upwards of £100 a night didn’t appeal and we were recommended the Butterfly on Wellington, a fairly central hotel on Hong Kong Island. Our 20th floor room was vertiginously high but was a good base from which to walk to the local sights through narrow crowded bustling streets lined with Chinese restaurants, food markets and cheap clothes shops.

Despite being rather weary after the 14 hour overnight flight and the 7 hour time difference we were determined to make the most of our three days in Hong Kong and be good tourists. The top attraction is going up Victoria Peak in a tram to look down on Hong Kong island’s forest of skyscrapers and over the straits to Kowloon island beyond, especially impressive at dusk as Hong Kong gradually lights up.

We caught the Star ferry across to Kowloon island and wandered around the streets, visiting the Museum of History where we learnt about the Opium Wars and the Japanese wartime occupation.We visited the busy Temple Street market and caught the evening light display at Temple Quai. The next day, in need of spiritual refreshment, the Man Mo Temple was just round the corner from our hotel – dim and smoky inside as incense coils were burnt and gifts of fruit placed on alters as offerings to the Taoist gods.

We decided that although Hong Kong was a fascinating place to visit and were glad we’d had the chance, it was hard work, frenetic and crowded. Although there was still masses more we could have seen, we doubt we’ll be back in this lifetime.

Friday 8th to Saturday 30th March. Bundaberg, Fraser Island & Marina Fever

Another overnight flight, from Hong Kong to Brisbane, then an internal flight to Bundaberg and we were shattered by the time we got to the marina. Vega appeared in good nick after almost five months out of the water and on the hard standing, albeit rather dirty and dusty inside and out. It was hot and humid trying to live on board in the boatyard and we were being attacked by mosquitoes. I bought the local IGA supermarket out of mosquito coils and put up mosquito nets over our bed. On returning to Vega one day we found that a couple of apples we had left out in the saloon had been partially eaten with large teeth marks in them so, terrified of some huge rat leaping onto my head in the night, we tried to sleep with the windows and hatches closed despite the heat. One night I left a window open by mistake and our nocturnal visitor turned out to be a young possum who was helping himself from the fruit bowl. He (or she) was very sweet but I had no wish to share my living space so after we had chased it around the boat and out through a window the marina staff put a trap under Vega, bated with an apple, and took it for a ride into the bush to find a new home.

The problem with our heads (marine toilet that is) was ongoing, it having first stopped working in Vanuatu, and since we had taken apart everything we could ourselves to try to locate the blockage, we called in the professionals. They diagnosed the sea water intake valve jammed shut which they replaced and also found the engine water inlet valve had stuck open, replacing this too.

Stan, over from Bristol and travelling round New Zealand and Australia, came to stay and we visited Bundaberg’s number one attraction, namely the Bundaberg Rum Factory, which rather strangely has a polar bear as its logo.

Life felt better once Vega eventually went back in the water. We picked up the repaired sails from the sailmaker and headed down to Fraser Island with Stan, dropping anchor by the Kingfisher Resort.

From a distance Fraser Island doesn’t look particularly interesting. It is only ashore that it becomes clear just how unique and beautiful it is. It has the tallest rainforest growing on sand anywhere in the world, with some enormous individual specimens of tree, many of them the largest trees of their species anywhere, which only escaped the logging industry as they were just too big – no sawmill in Queensland had machinery capable of handling them. After almost 125 years of logging on Fraser Island it finally ceased in 1991, after years of campaigning against it but not before there had been irreparable damage to the forest, the loss of trees of great age and stature, loss of forest canopy causing desiccation and changes to the microclimate, disturbance to the soil with loss of nutrients, and destruction of the wilderness value of the island. The aboriginal people who lived here for 5000 years are long gone, having been relocated to missions on the mainland in the early 20th century. We were told that there are still indigenous people who have an association with the island and one, Joe Gala, took part in an Aboriginal Cleansing Ceremony with Harry when he and Meaghan visited here in October 2018.

There are several resorts on the island. The roads are unmade and rutted so only 4WD vehicles can get around and these can come over on the ferry. We joined an organised tour to visit the ‘magic spots’ of the island: swimming in the cool freshwater of Lake McKenzie, walking in rainforest, driving along 75 mile beach and a short flight over the island, taking off and landing on the sand.

We didn’t see any of the three packs of dingo that are reputed to be the only pure dingoes left in Australia, which is why domestic dogs are completely banned from Fraser Island, although we did hear them howling at night from our anchorage. Originally descended from the Asian wolf they were brought in to Australia 4000 years ago as hunting dogs. Despite signs not to feed the dingoes and to not leave young children unattended, there have been three attacks on children this year on Fraser Island, most recently a baby being dragged from inside a camper van. It has been suggested that there is too little for them to eat on the island in the way of small creatures which is perhaps why they raid human camps.

It was too early to start to head north yet as the cyclone season in the South Pacific doesn’t officially end until April (meaning our insurance wouldn’t cover us for cyclone damage if we were any further north than Bundaberg). It was far too hot anyway, unseasonably hot and humid as all the local Australians kept telling us (another result of global warming?) and cyclones were still battering north Australia. We were getting marina fever and had seen most of the sights of Bundaberg, so decided to head south to Tasmania where it should be cooler, courtesy of Qantas. While we were travelling perhaps we should also visit Ayers Rock and Alice Springs too? We spent most of a day booking flights and a camping/trekking tour in the Red Centre, hiring a car and making hotel and Airbnb reservations, and on the Saturday morning got a taxi to Bundaberg Airport for the flight to Hobart (via Brisbane and Melbourne).