Year One
Date: 11/9/2008 14:00
Weather: Magic
Location: Newry Islands 20'51 10S, 148'55 83E
Author: Peter and Kylie (almost healthy)

Well after re provisioning at Cannonvale we are on the road again. Having spent quite a while in the Whitsundays we still have not done everything we wanted to do. Lucky we will be back in future years and will be able to complete our "to see and do" list as well as being able to head further north.

After two short hops to Happy Bay Long Island, and Burning Point Shaw Island we now find ourselves at the Newry group. The poor weather during race week has gone. It has been absolutely magic ever since with beautifully clear warm days and light SE/NE breezes helping us get south.

We are currently anchored in Port Newry a narrow passage between Newry and Outer Newry Islands. Three large and three small islands all National Park make up this group. The islands were once a part of a mainland mountain range. Since arriving Kylie has seen her first dugong (I am so jealous and hoping for another appearance), we are surrounded by some kind of large mackerel (over a metre) doing giant leaps into the air as they chase the bait fish, we have small Qld dolphins swimming by and last night two turtles were making out in the shallows of the beach off Newry Island.

It is beautiful ashore but different to the island just north. For starters there are mangroves, which we have not seen for a while, and the island is much drier. There are sand beaches, mainly copper in colour. Newry Island had a low key resort on it up until 2001 when National Parks took over the island. The abandoned old huts are still visible today, with informative plaques describing the history of the area. Unlike other resort islands in the Whitsundays, this island is not covered with weeds, having instead a wonderful array of grass trees as undergrowth. Walking through the bush at Heathcote when we lived there I thought there were allot of grass trees but that is nothing compared to here. There are just so many it is difficult to see anything else getting a chance to grow through. Around the area of the old resort is a wonderfully flat grass area set aside for camping. This would be an amazing place to spend a holiday camping, and being so close to the mainland it would be an easy tinnie ride out. We are so surprised that no one was here unlike Tasmania where there were allot of campers, even in some extremely cold places.

The beach on Newry Island with the old resort bar (shed) on left


View towards the mainland


Walking tracks

It feels good to be somewhere different again and one that has some walking tracks. We will be here for at least another two days exploring some of the other islands, and Kylie is hoping to catch one of these monster mackerels so she can hold it up for a photo. The only problem being, I'm not sure if she could hold one up!!!!

We are both still suffering a little from the flu, but are much better than we were. This one has hung around for allot longer than normal and we are not sure why. It has affected what we do each day as our energy levels are still not up to their normal levels.

This is great place to visit, so if you are one of those ninety people that checked our blog out last week (thats right our blog hit counter registered 90 hits...don't you guys have a life?????? hehehe), give some thought to visiting the Newry's if you get a chance. By the way, who are you all? And why have more of you not come up for a visit?

By the way we will be having dinner ashore tomorrow night at one of the many picnic tables taking advantage of this wonderful weather. Are you jealous now? Best view from any dinner table I know.

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