Tag: wildlife

A Month in Western Australia

After spending a year and a half in Australia, we still never made it to W.A. For non-Aussies, W.A. is the short form for Western Australia, the state that covers the entire length of the west coast of Australia. It’s funny that we had to get to Indonesia to visit Western Australia. We sailed to Indonesia and spent a few months there, then stopped in Lombok when the wind turned against us. That’s when we flew back to Australia. We spent a month in Western Australia and enjoyed exploring some cities, beach towns and more in this sprawling state.

The Busselton Jetty
Busselton Jetty in W.A.

Where We Went in Western Australia

Western Australia is the hugest part of a massive country. It covers over 2.5 million square kilometers, a third of Australia. It’s 4x the size of Texas and 10x the size of the United Kingdom. We knew we could barely see any of it, so we had to be selective. It was hard to choose!

Western Australia map of Australia
Western Australia on a map of Australia

We flew direct from Bali to Perth airport, shorter and cheaper than flying from New South Wales. We got off the plane in Perth and changed terminals for our domestic flight to our first and northernmost destination in W.A.: Broome.

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What to Do in Darwin

After a year and a half in Australia, our last stop was Darwin. The capital of the Northern Territory, it’s a small city. With a population of under 150,000 people, it’s even smaller than Cairns. This is the Australian tropics, and we felt the heat and humidity daily. Darwin is also home to lots of crocs and croc tours, and seeing the crocs is on our list of what to do in Darwin, Australia.

Arriving In Darwin

For us, just arriving in Darwin was interesting. We sailed there from across the top of Australia, with good wind pushing us west from Thursday island and east. Once we arrived in Darwin, we had to wait to get into the marina because of timing the tides. You see, tides in this part of the world are pretty extreme, with differences up to almost 8 meters. With those big tides, we didn’t want to anchor out and then wait all day to leave or return to our boat.

Instead we made a booking at Cullen Bay Marina. To get into the marina, we had to navigate a lock, which we haven’t done since the Panama Canal. It was a much shorter trip, but still stressful. We put out lots of lines and not enough fenders and got bumped and jostled. On both the entry and exit, the lockmaster was very helpful, but we ended up sweaty from the stress and the heat. Darwin is a hot place!

lock, Cullen bay Marina, Darwin
Approaching the lock exiting Cullen Bay Marina

Getting Around Darwin

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Making Fast Tracks North

We liked Port Macquarie, don’t get me wrong. But after months in that winter wonderland of rain and floods, once Go was ready, so were we. With our visas on the verge of expiring and the cold weather continuing, we started making fast tracks north. Townsville, just under 1000 knots north, was our goal, and we made it in good time.

Making Fast Tracks North: Our Route

We planned our route beforehand, and made some slight modifications due to – what else? – wind and weather. Our route was straight to Coffs Harbour, then an overnight to Gold Coast, our first stop in Queensland! From there, it was going to be an easy sail inside the islands to K’Gari and up to meet our friends in Scarborough Marina, outside Brisbane.

After celebrating Brian’s birthday over two nights in Scarborough, we moved north to Mooloolaba for one memorable night. Then we jumped to Double Island Point, Hervey Bay, and spent two nights in the marina near Bundaberg.

making tracks north from Port to Townsville, map
All the stops on our 800nm sail from Port to Townsville

After Bundy, we sailed to Great Keppell to Island Head Creek to Curlew Island, then two nights in Mackay with a quick reprovisioning and off again to the Whitsundays.

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