Thursay Island, and its only Wednesday

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DAY 334


5.50 am I was out of bed, many years ago I found out that this was most creative time of the day, (Not particularly at 5.50am) but certainly in the early mornings. I jumped straight out of bed, quietly put the kettle on and finished some blog work, my head always seems to be clear in the mornings.

With cup of tea by my side I sit and type in the early morning breeze, the sun is climbing and Caroline will be left for a little while longer. At 6.30 and I call to Caroline to see if she is awake, if she wasn’t she soon was.

We are off to Thursday Island today, but its only Wednesday I know, we are on the 08.00 fast jet from Seisia, to Thursday Island and we are both very excited about going.

“Caroline are you awake?” “Yes, I am just coming around!!” “Where do you want your tea?” “I will be out in a second”. Caroline appears and before long we have some breakfast.

I heard a horse whinny and thought strange there are no horses around here, we both look around just as one wanders down the track past the toilet block.

I go over to see her, she must be wild as her main is all matted and has loads of twigs and sticky things in it, though she is in quite good condition as far as her weight goes. She tells me her name is “Hungry Horse” I open her mouth and she hasn’t cleaned her teeth for a long time, they are like brown pegs.

I get back to getting ready for our day out and make the sandwiches (after washing my hands of course), and fill the drinks bottles.

We booked on line and don’t have any printed for of receipt but I memorised the booking number so we can always recite that when we check in.

We are ready to go, it is still nice and early, we wander from our campsite 500 meters to the ferry Jetty, we mooch around for a bit, there is nothing much here, just a few people waiting for the boat, and a couple of taxis waiting to collect people off the boat when it arrives. The boat loads at 7.45 while we are waiting we chat to an American guy he has been travelling for about 8 years, he has his own yacht, but it is moored up somewhere else, he came up on someone else’s yacht which is moored in the bay and he will fly back to Cairns tomorrow.

The boat has just arrived from Thursday Island so once the passengers had gotten off we checked our names in and got on the boat along with the other nine people. Technology works here our names are on the list, handwritten yes, but we are on the list.

With engines ticking over we sat down stairs and we both felt a couple of rain drops on our arms and looked up to the sky and saw it had become quite cloudy, a rain drop or two is no problem it virtually evaporates as soon as it hits you.

The boat moved away from the jetty and we were then motoring out in to the Coral Sea and the Endeavour Strait, which is littered with small shallow reefs.

The captain took the fast jet parallel to the beach where we could see our campsite and suddenly the twin engines were wide open and we find ourselves heading at speed out to the green marker buoy and on to Thursday Island.

We cruised past other islands like Red Island, which does not look habitated, Zuna, Prince of Wales, Horn, and Friday Island, which appeared to have 1 swanky house on it, and finally ending up at Thursday Island where the boat landed at about 9.10. We had a great crossing very calm and the sea breeze was just great.

We disembarked and walked out of the little ferry terminal heading for the Town Centre. The Customs and Excise building was the first interesting building that we saw and just had to take some pictures, then walking on in to town, which is stretching the point a bit, we went in to the council offices (tourist information) and asked them if they had a map of the island and what were all the things to see and do here.

The lady was very helpful she suggested that the Green Hill Fort was well worth a look, it was a good walk up the hill too it but the views at the top were quite spectacular.

We walked the last leg of the “High Street” and heard this almighty clatter, a trade van had gone past with a load of 6“ soil pipe on the top without it being tied on and it had just slipped off the back, nobody seemed too bothered, a few locals just picked them up, put them back on the roof rack and the bloke went on his way.

The hill was a good climb and we got there under leg power, which was really nice, quite liberating really not having to rely on the truck for a change. We think our walking up the mountains in Cairns meant that we were more than fit enough to tackle the walk up this hill.

We walked around the fort for about an hour, and we didn’t know there was an under ground armoury where they kept the all shells for the guns, what you are not told is when you come on to Thursday Island unless you have paid for an organised tour which is $30.00 bucks per head, you can only get down in to these parts of the fort if you happen to be there at the same time as an organised tour as the bus Driver has the access key.

As it turned out the lady bus driver said she was behind schedule and had to get back on the bus to get them somewhere else and had to lock the armoury so we didn’t get a chance to look inside, however if we had wandered in and she didn’t know we were in there then we could have possibly been locked in and as the next tour is not due until Friday then we would have waited a long time.

There was a small room that we managed to walk around that had some Thursday Island Artefacts, which was good and a lot of history about the pearl diving, which was a huge source of income to T.I along with fishing.
There was an old fashioned diving suit the one with the beautiful bronze and brass helmet and the information board told of up to 700 Japanese divers losing their lives due to de compression sickness (The Bends) whilst diving for pearls.

We finished at the fort and just before the bus driver lady left, we asked her were she was going next, as she was on an organised tour we thought we would pick her brains. The Cemetery she said and the Japanese Memorial.

We checked the map and it was a fair walk, so we set off and got there in about 20 minutes. Part of the Cemetery that had the graves for the Japanese Pearl divers was very old and dull, with a lot of broken graves and railings, we were amazed to see some huge termite mounds that have been constructed right in the middle of a couple of the graves. It is a sad sight to see the graves in such poor state of repair, some of them are so bad that there is no marker to say who was buried there.

As we walk on there are some far newer graves that are so colourful, it almost seems to be a colourful tribute to someone’s life, which is nice.

To commemorate what the Japanese did for the Pearling industry and out of respect for those that lost their lives the Japanese government had paid for a nice Marble memorial in their honour.

We checked the map again and set off walking on the road, around the “Mountain”, the day was now scorching so we had to make sure we kept our hats on but the wind was strong so more often than not we had to keep one hand on our head to keep the hat in place.

Caroline wanted to use the loos, so we crossed the road, and I held her camera bag whilst she went in. I was talking to a lady whilst Caroline was inside, I find that this lady lives on Hammond Island and had come over this morning with the school kids and was waiting for a lift back, she had lived on Hammond island since she was a child only leaving to travel and then returning 6 years ago, she is a qualified nurse, so her skills are very beneficial in these parts.

I asked her if Hammond Island still lived the traditional way and she said they did in part but the old traditional ways were slowly disappearing as the modern world began to take over, but thankfully it was a slow transition.

We wish her a safe trip back and get on our way and walk ourselves into a dead end, which happens to be a “retirement home” for the elderly we start chatting to this guy who was there, he looked like he was possibly the maintenance man.

He was telling us that he had recently been to a an unveiling of a grave, it marks the end of mourning which is usually about a year after the original funeral took place. The tombstone is draped in bright fabrics and decorated with gifts that are then distributed as thanks at the unveiling.

He points us back on to the right track and off we march, walking round the peninsula and on to Sadie’s Beach, where there was a nice sun shelter and picnic spot, which we take full advantage of. Sandwiches and drinks are broken out and we sit in the shade and enjoy the day and the well earned rest.


We had a couple of hours left so we set off for the final leg of the walk, we had to walk up this small “Mountain” where a couple of Wind Turbines where sited along with communications Arial’s. One of the wind turbines was busy turning with the wind whilst the other was dormant, we walked and walked eventually passing the defences compounds and finally hitting the road.

By now we were really hot and needed a cool drink we walked past a small super market and purchased a bottle of cold drink, and sat outside under the sunshade and woofed it down. A couple walked past who had come over on the boat with us said hello, and we started to chat.

Michael and Claire are from Brisbane and were on a round Australia trip, they were just over for the day like us, and their Patrol was packed so that when they got back to shore tonight, they were starting the long journey back down towards Cairns to collect their caravan then they were working there way over to Karumba, then back to Brisbane for Christmas then off again, heading South.

We walked back with Michael and Claire to the ferry Jetty, they are a nice couple whom we had a lot in common with, they had just started out on their years adventure.

The ferry people turned up and at 2.15 and we all boarded, she took off at 2.30 the journey seemed really quick on the way back though it was still and hour and 10 minutes. We started the journey sitting outside but it was quite choppy and the waves were sending huge sprays right over the top of the boat and onto the back end where we were sitting, so we all decamped inside.

Michael had told me something that I thought was special, they had bought their Nissan Patrol 2 years ago and had not driven it for 2 years until they were ready for their big trip as they wanted the vehicle to be brand new when they finally did venture out on their expedition, we both thought that was really nice.

They asked us all about the blog, so we told them how it worked and we advised them that a blog would be good for them, as it is a record of your adventure, warts and all, they said that they may give it ago.

We walked back to the campsite and got back and flopped down it was still hot and so were we, as we had had such a busy day.

After a cup of tea we sat and read for an hour or so then started typing up the blog for the day before, Caroline told me she had just finished 138 puzzles on her Nintendo. We find that Carolines Ebay account has had unauthorised access and someone has been busy doing some scam or another buying things in her name. We got suspicious after an email from Ebay saying that there was an upaid dispute opened up against my username.

I tried to get into my account, it is locked and it seems that the password has been changed, I eventually get hold of someone on a live chat line at Ebay, explain the problem and soon my account is unlocked and Ebay very kindly seem to have sorted out the problems.

I was shocked to see some of the messages in my folder, whoever it was had given a Nigerian address for delivery of goods, I don’t know how they thought the scam would work unless they were using a stolen credit card, they were also using the guise that it should be sent to Nigeria as the goods were purchased for a friend out there. I found that amongst the purchases were Louis Vuitton Bags (probably fake too), Laptops, Apple iphones and men’s chunky gold bracelets to name but a few.

It took a while to get sorted out, but I eventually managed to change my password (much more complicated this time) and my location details, so fingers crossed it wont happen again. Something similar happened to my Sister in Law a couple of years ago, they broke into her account and where trying to sell a fairly 5 series BMW for next to nothing probably stolen, but again that was foiled.

We eventually managed to Skype our dear friends in Perth, Cliff and Sue, after much toing and froing we finally caught up with them which was great, we had such a clear Skype call, unfortunately later on Caroline Skyped her mum and Dad and the call was nowhere near as clear as the call earlier.

By the time we had finished tea, did a couple of e-mails, down loaded photo’s and tried to have a relax it was time for bed.

The evening was still warm, and with all the tent sides open there was no other option but to sleep on top of the bed again, with the cool-ish sea breeze to waft over us.

We have had a great day on Thursday Island, and I would think it will possibly be a long time until we are back again this way, but who knows?

Tomorrow we plan to take things easy and enjoy this beautiful tropical environment.

Until tomorrow.

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Photos

Looking out to Sea
From Green Hill Fort

6 Inch Gun
At Green Hill Fort

Another Chance
Chance Brothers Optical Lenses