Having a LARC and a Scooter Roo!!!

Location: Agnes Water/Seventeen Seventy, Queensland
Weather: Apparently – Very Queensland. Started with sun then the wind increased then we had rain and now we’re back to sun again! 29°c

Having lived in a coastal village in South Africa for a number of years I love the sound of the waves crashing onto the coastline and can think of no better way of falling asleep but having the Great Barrier Reef to protect Hamilton Island from the incoming swell has taken this away!

So when I arrived in Agnes Water, the most northerly surf break along this coastline, hearing the near-constantly breaking waves outside my balcony felt good again and like home once more. My girlfriend Bre had taken the overnight coach down to meet me in Bundaberg and once we’d met up Trevor from Tourism Queensland drove us north and up the coast to the famous outcrop of land where Captain Cook made his first landfall in Queensland – 1770.

We’re here for three days so instead of the usual hotel to stay in we’ve a fantastic Mantra Pavilions Mirage on 1770 apartment right on the beach in Agnes Water. There’s a couple of bedrooms, open-plan lounge and kitchen, jacuzzi bath and vast balcony overlooking the sandy beach together with a real ocean noise!

The LARC

Our first activity when we arrive is the LARC – a bright pink amphibious vehicle! These things are huge, powerful and a real eye-catcher with the tourists offering tours on and around the surrounding waterways. Neil one of the co-owners and driver invites us on board and there’s no hesitation at all.

The LARC

Originally designed for the U.S. Military in 1960 as resupply vehicles, the pink-fleet have been redesigned to house the sort of passengers who all up for an educational tour and a good laugh at the same time. As the beast of a engine roars into life we take off down the slipway and enter the water…

At 63 feet long the LARC has some serious presence both on the road and in the water, as we leave the far bank of the river, climbing up the steep sad dune, a flock of pelicans and boobies take to the air wondering what-on-earth this bizarre pink machine is all about.

We take to the water again, sending a plume of spray up from the huge sand tyres as we enter the surf. As the water comes over the height of the wheels the propellor kicks up powering us out into open water where a challenge is given to me…catch a fish and the rod and reel are mine! Up for the challenge I take to the rook of the beast, casting into a shoal of baitfish surfacing just off the side…ten minutes later….nothing…we have to leave and I fail in the mission.

After an hour we stop to watch the sun set over the horizon and make for home, Neil lets me jump up front with him and drive the monster for a few minutes – this thing has some serious power but surprisingly only drinks a litre of fuel every km – maybe I’ll get one to drive around Australia instead of a Land Rover?!

Scooter Roos!!!

I’d heard a huge amount of great stories and reports all about these mad little things long before I knew it was even on the itinerary so it came as a great delight when we pulled into the driveway of Rod’s thriving business on the outskirts of town. Being met by a collection of signs, memorabilia and mini-scooters hung on the fence and trees gives you an idea of the sort of entertainment you’re in for!

The fleet of 60 customised scooters look the dogs-danglies! They all have extended handlebars, flame paint-jobs, look like mini Harley-Davidson’s and are a simple to ride as they’re semi-automatic and best of all only require a normal car license to drive them. People literally queue up to do this, it’s a really cheap activity that takes place over three hours and represents one of THE most economical, exhilarating afternoons that I’ve had in a long time.

I lead the group of riders out of the Scooteroo yard, Rod has prepared me a special machine for the afternoons ride with flaming mirrors and bright red paint job….I feel like a mini Hell’s Angel and pull up around 200 metres down the road to have the once-over briefing which makes sure everybody is feeling confident before we head off around the town for real.

The wind in the hair feeling of riding a bike in convoy is something I’ve never done before and I loved it, looking back in the mirrors the trail of headlights disappeared into the distance and the easy-to-ride machines feel great to ride. We wind our way through the countryside around Agnes Water and 1770 stopping off to watch some of the local Kangaroos chomping away on their evening meal in the neighbourhood gardens.

As the sun starts to set once again the convoy makes its way back into the outer confines of the sleepy seaside community, I wonder what the locals think about the daily invasion through the town – all of them seem pretty happy actually, with smiles and waves wherever we go even though half the fleet are almost constantly on their horns! Awaiting us on arrival are the infamous potato wedges which each rider has to replace the energy lost through the adrenalin-filled activities of the afternoon.

Everyone, and I mean everyone looks like they’ve had the time of their lives – from the young to the old, male and female this is a sure fire winner. Having chatted to a few others it materialises that loads of people are actually having their second day on the trot it’s so good.

Now the question is after Best Job do I travel around Australia by Land Rover or motorbike….my mum would kill me here so I’d better say Land Rover!

End of day location: Agnes Water, Queensland

Distance covered: 60kms

One man’s dream…

Aussisms for today:

• Stinker – 1. A very hot day 2. Anything very difficult or unpleasant
• Bottler – An expression of delight or absolute approval. A synonym for beauty!
• Acre – The buttocks or backside: ’sitting on his acre’

One man’s life long dream is about to become reality – I love that.

That’s how my Afritrex expedition around Africa last year happened, five years of planning and finally it happened.

The same goes for Tim Reigel who’s continuing the project his father started 31 years ago – to build  low impact resort entitled Turtle Street Beach Resort on the land he owns on Curtis Island near Gladstone. Back then he dreamt of having a small resort built on the headland offering exclusive living and holidays utilising the land around for cattle grazing, raising stud horses and a different style of living from the islands which I’ve become used to seeing.

As we arrived back in Gladstone from Heron Island there was a surprise waiting for us; another helicopter flight for Bre and I! Tim had organised for us to fly out to his land to see first hand what his vision was and where it’d all start to take place in just a few months time…..finally.

We flew along the creek, over the ocean and touched down on the hook of the headland where this……

Will become this…..

After years of battling bureaucracy, handing land back as national park and waiting patiently for the right plans and time the shovels will hit the dirt very soon and in eighteen months time the first of the residents will move into their new properties.

I’ve been subject wholly to island life since arriving so having the chance to see 4WD tracks twisting through the forest, the cattle forming lines across the vast flood plains and to gawp at the massive orange sand dunes by the river was a real eye opener. This is the Australia I’ll discover after the ‘Best Job in the World’ – a very different and wild environment but just as exciting.

…and Tim’s vision for the future? He wants to become the Activities Manager offering to take clients on horse rides, teach them to throw a lasso or walk the beach passing on his knowledge.

Now that to me is a retirement plan to work for, even if it does involve 31 years of trying…..

All the way out to Heron Island…

Aussisms for today:

• Garbo – A garbage removalist. Another example of the Aussie penchant for abbreviating words, the suffix ‘o’ being just about as popular as ‘ie’.
• Send her down Hughie – Please make it rain (Hughie was traditionally a bush-dwellers epithet for God).
• Muddie – A Queensland mud crab, also known as a mangrove crab and considered a culinary delicacy.

Location: Gladstone, Queensland

Weather: Scattered clouds, bits of blue – Simpson’s sky! Strong winds. 23°c

Time for another set of islands and I’m really excited about these ones, I’ve heard a heck of a lot of good things about both Heron and Wilson Islands – now it’s time for them to deliver!

Sunrise through the windows of the train was pretty special, a quick bite of breakfast before jumping off the train at Gladstone into the very welcoming arms of Trevor and Cindy, our contacts here for the next stage of the Island Reef Job adventure.

A quick tour of the town, to prove that Gladstone is more than just a jumping off point for the islands, a little introduction to some of the volunteers at the tourism centre and another quick bite of breakfast….that’s two already, not good for the ever increasing waistline.

Question – Pancakes for breakfast – Sweet or savoury? Australians do the sweet thing…Canadians do the savoury thing with bacon included. Interesting.

To get out to Heron Island, the first of our two destinations and part of the Capricorn group situated 75kms from the mainland, we’re onto another high speed catamaran, which isn’t a bad choice considering the swell out in the open water. Big rolling waves causing us to list from side to side resulting in a fair few green faces and even the odd passenger racing to the toilet. I am so pleased I don’t suffer from sea sickness!

The view on the GPS as we neared the islands

We pass the more placid waters round the sheltered reefs of Masthead and Erskine Islands and on the horizon the iconic image of a desert island appears – low lying land punctuated by short trees and in the foreground surf breaking on the outer reef. Here comes the good stuff.

Heron from afar

The final approach to Heron is spectacular, as you close in on the wreck which protects the deep water channel the colours of the reef become vivid and bright. Light blues over the sand, greens over the coral and browns where the dropping tide expose the head of the bommies (coral covered outcrops around which marine life thrives – Bombora is the Aussie description of a mountain underwater, follow the usual practice of shortening the word and adding ‘ie’!!)

We join the group of people arriving on the island for a quick familiarisation tour, the resort (although you can’t really relate it to a true resort as it’s too small and nothing like a touristy-filled monstrosity) subtly blending into the Pisonia Forest at the western end of the island.

There’s a few different accommodation types on the island, all nestled amongst the Pandanus trees, from the waterfront properties to the smaller apartment-style rooms each offering a retreat far from phone reception, noise and the hustle and bustle of daily life – if you want to get away from it all this is the place to do it.

Pandanas Tree

The promise of some of the best snorkelling and diving on the Great Barrier Reef here on Heron Island has been banded around by a few people and after the incredible experiences of Lizard and Hayman Islands there’s so much to play for…who’ll come out on top I wonder!? If the scene outside my bedroom’s anything to go by then Heron’s surely looking good.  A quick snorkel in sight of the room on the incoming tide confirms a mass of aquatic life here; a small turtle, several white and black tip reef sharks and parrotfish galore. Bring on our scuba session tomorrow….

Now I’m known for loving sunrise – but sunset comes a very close second. Living on a small island offers both….having a few clouds makes it better…..but stick a wreck into the picture and suddenly you have as iconic a photo as an African elephant by a watering hole!

Another immaculate sunset

One of the many ‘in-touch-with-nature’ activities on offer here is the Sunset Cruise so we head out on a motor launch across the rowdy ocean and find the perfect location to witness the great fiery ball dropping behind the horizon for another day. I only hope the pictures do it justice.

Part Two

Dinner seemed well overdue when we got there;  the long day was starting to catch up with me, so a simple choice of three items for starters and then again for mains eased the usually complicated process of deciding between, excessive eating and satisfying my desire to eat awesome Aussie red meat everywhere I go.

End of day location: Heron Island

Distance travelled: 75kms

Location: Heron Island

Weather: Grey clouds, strong winds, light rain. Not exactly the weather for a tropical island paradise!

Sunrise didn’t happen; not as I wanted it to anyway. Grey clouds all around aren’t the best omen for quality diving. Let’s get the blood pumping then – Bre and I left the comfy room and headed out onto the beach for a lap of the island. At 1.8kms round the outside, it’s a great way to settle the breakfast and immerse yourself in island life by taking in the flora and fauna, which thrives here. The White and Grey Egrets are my morning favourite and look to be such glum things – as though it’s been raining everyday of their lives. At the windward side of the island it becomes clear to see how these sand covered cays become islands over hundreds of years…here’s a summary:

• Coral forms an underwater bommie or reef
• Sand piles up on the obstruction gradually forming a small cay
• Sea birds rest and use it as a new island and toilet dropping seeds on the surface
• Seeds root and bind the surface together allowing more creepers and plants to establish
• Bushes and trees eventually grow providing habitat for all forms of life
• An island is made!!

When you walk around an island such as this you can see exactly why it all happens too, pumice stone from volcanic activity across the ocean washes up on the tide line along with a huge range of seeds in all shapes and sizes – if I was a seed I’d setup home here for sure. Mangroves being a particular favourite with their love for mud and sand and their ability to root in saltwater situations.

Dive time finally and a chance to test out my lovely new dive gear, which I’ve been dying to get wet for the last few weeks; the promise of manta rays, turtles and sharks running through my head as I climbed aboard our dive boat anxious to get in the water to see what was on offer.

Heron's dive boat

“Follow the anchor line down and I’ll meet you at the bottom” our divemaster said, a quick squeeze of the air release on my BCD (buoyancy control device) and down I sank, dropping 12m to the ocean floor scanning the horizon for any aquatic beauties. Didn’t take long either – a green turtle gently propelling itself out of sight behind a bommie, the first to be spotted. The first of six we’d see today but the elusive rays staying well out of sight even though the dives before and after ours spotted them….funny how that happens or is it just a sales pitch!?!

Forty minutes flew by, Bre had been huffing air like a whale and her dive computer showed limited supplies so we headed to the surface, got out of our gear and tried to warm up in the sunlight…the difference in water temperature here noticeable at 19°c compared to the 23°c of the Whitsundays.

Ready for an underwater adventure

Hopefully tomorrow the sun will come out for real as we have two dives in the morning, today was a little disappointing. Rolling ocean swell and grey skies reduced the visibility with the bottom being stirred up limiting our chances of seeing everything we’d come to witness – I only hope the wind and swell are in the right direction tomorrow to give us a chance to dive at Heron Bommie, described by Lonely Planet as “The Best Fish Dive on the Great Barrier Reef,” an area which has had almost every film, documentary and story about the reef shot here.

Total for today’s dive: 7.5/10 just above average.

Day Two’s diving was altogether different. The wind dropped off, the skies cleared and the sun shone through the ocean illuminating the reef below and its inhabitants – this is exactly what I wanted, a chance to see the multitude of fish and marine life up close so that filming it would be not just a rewarding process for me but also for you the viewer. It’s be easy to bang on for ages about quite how good the fishes were but instead I’ve put together a little video, which will allow you to see for yourselves, so please sit back and enjoy the Heron Island compilation of the two days we spent above and below the water:

Total for today’s dives: 9.5/10 almost perfect – just one Manta Ray would have been good that’s all!

Location: Heron Island

Distance travelled: 5kms by boat, 500m diving.

Planes, trains and automobiles…oh and boats!

Day One

Location: Blue Pearl, Hamilton Island.

Weather: Scattered clouds, warm sunshine and blustery winds. 23°c

Chaperone to Mr Frankie Chee from Singapore…

One of the jobs I have to do whilst in the role of Island Caretaker is meet and greet some of the journalists reporting on the Best Job campaign and today was no different…well a little bit different.

Instead of having a quick interview on the balcony at Blue Pearl, Mr Chee was here on the island for a few days to soak up the activities and atmosphere of the Whitsundays. Frankie works for the Straits Times in Singapore and this is surely his best posting yet – go to Hamilton island, enjoy what’s on offer and by the end of August have put together a two page story for the Life section of the paper, simple.

Met the man in question from the boat (he’d missed his flight in Brisbane by accident!) and had a good giggle with him driving up to Qualia (the 6* resort at the tip of Hamilton Island) and sat down in the Long Pavilion for an informal interview.

I hadn’t seen any of the rooms here – oh my gosh, they’re incredible. Each of the windward side properties have their own classy little plunge pools overlooking the ocean and are around $1750 a night! Check out the photos below:

Time was against us so after we’d raced to the Buggy Shop (which was closing in 5 minutes), collected his ride and checked him into the Reef View Hotel for his stay. Met him for dinner at Steakhouse Restaurant and Bar on the marina (worth trying out if you’re staying on the island but make sure you queue for a table before queueing to place your order – we waited in the wrong line for half an hour….arghhhhh!) and then headed home to bed.

End of day location: Hamilton Island
Distance travelled: 5kms

Day Two

Location: Blue Pearl, Hamilton Island.
Weather: Scattered clouds, warm sunshine and strong winds. 22°c

Early birds catch the first boat, that’ll be us then! We’re off to Whitehaven Beach again today together with Frankie but this time we’re catching the ferry to Shute Harbour and taking a Panoramic Flight with Air Whitsundays in a Cessna Caravan to Whitehaven and then onto Hardy Reef. It’s a great chance for him to see some of the amazing locations on offer here and report back to the Singapore market with his story.

“Mr Talkative’ or Rob who manages the airport gave us a quick guided tour of the ambitious development that’ll be taking place here over the next few years, 57 runway-side lots with each house capable of housing a light aircraft in the garage…..how mad is that? Have a look for yourself at www.whitsundayairport.com.au

We left the airfield with a total of nine on board, including Drew the captain, just after 10.30am heading due east out over the Whitsunday Passage passing Molle, Lindeman and Hamilton Islands with the white crests of the waves breaking far below in the strong wind – no sign of whales down there though, they must be swimming low in the heavier conditions today.

As we approach Whitehaven we swooped low over Hill Inlet and landed on the choppy surface coming to a stop 5m from the beach. Drew our pilot secured the plane and hauled two Eskies (Australian for Cool Boxes as we call them in the UK!) full of sparkling wine, cheese, and assorted nibbles up the beach for our consumption.

But there’s no time for that as I head off down the beach for a run…there’s 7kms of glorious white sand here so I had to, then into the ocean for a long overdue swim in the crystal clear water. The wind howling down the beach whips the soft sand off the surface covering my sunbathing girl Bre in a fine dust much to my amusement, she then takes her revenge by burying me up to my neck in it!

An hour later we pack up, clamber aboard and start the taxi into the headwind before sweeping further east towards the Great Barrier Reef itself and our destination Hardy Reef. It’s a spectacular 13km long reef with a suspended lagoon that three waterfalls drain from and as you approach the dark blue water of the channels are clearly visible, at some points up to 80m deep. Another landing on the choppy water and ten minutes later we’re tied up alongside the semi-submersible and cruising slowly through the reef gawping at the underwater world through the windows of the sub. Passing squid, big parrotfish and a stack of other marine life which stick around for too short a time to be identified clearly! I will get better at this spotting game I’m sure.

Wetsuits on and into the choppy water, awesome snorkeling again – it’d be very easy to become complacent about the things you see underwater here, there’s so many varieties of coral on this reef and most only just below the surface so it’s an easy job even in these conditions to float about and take far too many pictures of them all! Did get my first underwater sighting of a squid today and how cool are they? Almost a translucent white when I first saw it changing into a brown and black as I approached and scared it, amazing.

The cold took its effect on me far too quickly and 40 minutes later I was back on the pontoon, joined by Bre and Frankie shortly after where we gulped down our light lunch before jumping on board our plane back to the Whitsundays Airport. Superb day out exploring this part of the reef and I think Frankie will go back with a very positive outlook from which to compile his story!

After a quick dinner with Racheal from Tourism Queensland, she drove us to Proserpine rail station where we caught the Queenslander train south to Gladstone (the Gateway to Heron and Wilson Islands) – our first Australian train ride.

The last train Bre caught was a third class rust-bucket in India so her expectations weren’t good but as the 8.55pm pulled into the platform her fears turned into a beaming smile. We made our way to ‘B’ coach and the awaiting cabin which had been booked for us. What a pleasant surprise – these are great little rooms with two bunks, wash room and attendant service. I only wish this was a day service instead of an overnight one so we’d see the view!

The Queenslander service is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and provides a rail link from Cairns down the east coast to Brisbane with fine dining and a range of accommodation options on board. The total distance of 1600kms takes 31 hours but we’ll only experience around a third of that on the overnight service.

Shelley checked us in, showed us how to operate the beds and brought us a cheese platter to help give us nightmares that night. Does that really happen!?

The sunshine and travel of the day had made us tired and just after midnight I slipped under the covers ready for a new destination and challenge tomorrow, the hypnotic sound of the sleepers below helping to knock me out….

End of day location: Somewhere between Proserpine and Gladstone

Distance travelled: Around 120kms by air, 30kms by car, 20kms by sea and 400kms by rail – WOW!