Blogs from Lady Musgrave Island, Queensland, Australia, Oceania

Back on the road again found us driving 500 kms to the east coast along the Dawson Highway, through the sleepy towns of Rolleston Bauhinia, Moura and Banana and hardly a coffee shop or pie shop in sight! The road was straight and dotted with road works and detours as we were taken past gas and coal mines that had scared the land with man-made hills and reservoirs. Large road trucks hauled livestock and minerals along the roads dominating the highway and created huge dust clouds in their wake. Fragile communities existed in remote townships with few resources and infra structure, certainly not an easy life when even a drive to the local school is 60 kms one-way. The journey took all day and we found ourselves eager to arrive at our campsite before dark so ... read more

It was another 6am start ready for our cruise. By 7.30am we’d been to the marina office to pay up and boarded the small boat which took us to the larger vessel around the corner. The trip was to Lady Musgrave Island, one of the most southern islands in the Great Barrier Reef, for a day of snorkelling, swimming and coral viewing. I’d been worried about Matt doing the journey as the leaflet advertising the trip made reference to seasickness. We’d tried to find some ‘Sealegs’ tablets which were the ones he took in Fiji and NZ which actually seemed to work - but they didn’t sell them anywhere. Instead a pharmacist had recommended another brand so he’d taken some the night before and earlier in the morning and we were keeping our fingers crossed. I ... read more

The 30-year-old fuel stove is choofing malcontentedly, and we put in a half-hearted attempt to improve its efficiency enough to get a dinner out of it. The result is in proportion to the effort we put in and, as the stove coughs itself to a stop, we decide the most holidaying way to deal with the problem is to forgo a hot meal for another glass of wine and the pleasures of cheeses and crackers on the beach to watch the post-sunset colour fade from the horizon. It's our welcoming message from Lady Musgrave Island: that what may seem to be a problem may turn out to be a pleasure if we change our perspective. We are half way through a two-week respite from the stresses of work, and have arrived on the island, part of ... read more

Spent the morning trying to stay cool - temperature already in high 20s by 8am and rising we were all up early - too hot to sleep. Wendy was off surfing at 11 while Cara and I had opted for more relaxing walk along beach. Got to surfing beach in time for Cara to catch Wendy riding a wave (admittedly not a big barrelling roller) but pretty cool dude nevertheless. By the time she had finished it was 1.30 and hot enough to fry an egg on the pavement. Back to hostel to hide from sun for a couple of hours. Couple of kangaroos turned up and hung about grazing some 50 yds from our porch but were eventually scared off by the local horse. I checked out and eventually booked tour of Fraser Island, the ... read more

After a rough nights sleep due to our inconsiderate room mates that seemed intent on keeping us up for as long as possible and the fact that we were excited at doing something for the first time in what seemed like ages we arose to a bright clear sunny morning, just like the day before and just what we had been waiting all this time for, so we were expecting a great day. Our pick up arrived at 7:30 to take us 10 minutes down the road to the sleepy seaside village of 1770 where our boat was waiting to take us to the reef. As we went to pay our money we were still unsure as to whether we were going to do our intro. scuba dive as we were a little nervous about the ... read more