Goodbyes...

Sunrise at Scarborough Marina.

A tribute walkway to the Beegees, having come from this area

Waiting for a weather window to head north from Scarborough Marina was taking longer than expected, so we hired a car and headed up to see Carola and Jim (Koza) and Fay and Phil (Jigsaw)

We had had so much fun coming down through the Pacific with them 

and it was yet again time for goodbyes...  we will miss them as we travel on.

Middle Percy Island...

where there was a structure built for the cruisers to use, 

 

with flags and parafanaleia from all over the world,

so we left our mark of having visited...

There was a lovely walk up to the original homestead, where they had put sayings along the way attached to trees...

Near the A-Frame on the beach  is a "Tree House".  This is presently lived in by a young couple who are volunteering on the island, and also on occassion offering coffee and goat stew to cruisers - if they were lucky enough to catch a goat on the right day...

Sailing passed Hamilton Island you are directly deside the airport

At the time of arriving here, it was only about a month after the Cyclone and you could see it had hit some of the islands with a vengeance.

At Sawmill Bay, Whitsundy Island we went ashore for a walk to the top

The damage from the cyclone very evident...

The views at the top were spectacular

Spectacular sunset at Airlie Beach...

Anchored off Mantes Resort Cape Glouchesr it was time for more goodbyes...

Another sad goodbye to Sea Adler... It was a delight meeting you all...

Arriving at Magnetic Island we were struck by how the island is made up of boulders

We went on some really lovely walks here, being lucky enough to see Koala in the wild

along with Kookaburras and Wallabies

The scenery was spectacular...

We made a day stop at Zoe Bay, and walked to the waterfall...

So the time had come to be even more vigilant and definately no going in the water

Heading to Bluewater Marina just north of Cairns it was time to reprovision before heading to Indonesia and sadly we also had to get a new outboard our Yamaha having corroded with a cracked block from the inside out.  Considering this was flushed regularly we were pretty disappointed!

The new outboard above, and a few boxes of essentials below hahaha

Leaving Cairns area

The fort lockout at Thursday Island...

We had various other anchorages we stopped at.

We had to cut short our time and head urgently to Horn/Thursday Island with a major problem with our inverter.  We have had to replace this.

 We are now checked out and heading off to Indonesia on Sunday.

So it is "Goodbye to Australia"...