Bushwalking on water

Sea kayaking along the east coast of Hinchinbrook Island in north Queensland

By Louise Southerden
Winning entry for 2006 ASTW Travel Writer of the Year – Responsible Tourism.

First published in WellBeing #102, November 2005

At first glance, Hinchinbrook Island in north Queensland is a wild and daunting place. That’s if you can see it – we couldn’t, as we drove south along the aptly-named Bruce Highway on our way to Lucinda, about halfway between Townsville and Cairns, where we were to launch our kayaks. How, we wondered, could Australia’s largest island national park be so invisible from the mainland?

But there was a perfectly rational explanation. Unlike other Barrier Reef islands that involve an ocean voyage to reach them, Hinchinbrook nestles against the mainland like a dugong calf to its mother – which means that, to the casual observer, it looks just like another headland instead of an island a few kilometres offshore. (The narrow channel separating Hinchinbrook from the Queensland coast is one of the world’s last remaining habitats of the endangered dugong – see box.)

It’s so close to the coast, in fact, that even Captain Cook found it tricky to tell, when he sailed past in 1770, where the mainland ended and the island he named after the estate of the Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, began. We were in esteemed company at least.

Then we saw it, through a break in the coastal palms, and it took our breaths away. More than 30 kilometres from end to end and almost 20 kilometres wide, Hinchinbrook is the largest island in the Great Barrier Reef, and uninhabited except for a small eco-resort at its northern tip. Its granite mountains are more than 250 million years old, and its interior boasts undisturbed valleys lorded over by 1000-metre peaks that would look more at home in Tasmania than far north Queensland.

At Lucinda, we packed the boats and kitted ourselves out with lifejackets, paddles and broad-brimmed hats against the fierce midday sun. It felt exhilarating to be heading into this vast, brooding place with all our camping gear and supplies stowed below the decks of our trusty two-person sea kayaks. And as we paddled towards the southern end of the island, we watched the mainland disappear behind a skyline of forested peaks. We were entering another world…

Hinchinbrook Island may be best known for the Thorsborne Trail, the 32-kilometre walking track that edges along its east coast, but bushwalking here is the exception rather than the rule. The island is so valuable in wilderness terms – parts of it were declared National Park as early as 1932 and the entire island is now protected under the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area – most of it remains untracked and largely inaccessible.

Even Arthur and Margaret Thorsborne, the conservationist couple after whom the walking trail was named, spent more time exploring the island by sea than on foot, sailing their yacht from Mission Beach as often as they could throughout the 1960s and 1970s:
“Viewed from the sea…the coastline is formidable, with rocky cliff faces and headlands softened here and there by long curving beaches of white sand. From sea to mountain top is only a short distance, but in this steep rise are awe-inspiring precipices, some with shining streaks of waterfalls plunging into mysterious, deeply shaded valleys.” (From Hinchinbrook Island: The land time forgot by Arthur and Margaret Thorsborne, 1987.)

It all adds up to one thing: Hinchinbrook is tailor-made for sea travel. The east-facing coast is scalloped with sandy beaches protected from Coral Sea swells by the Barrier Reef, so it’s easy to glide ashore without capsizing (although that skill eluded us on our first day). Sheltered coves that face different directions mean there’s always somewhere calm to land. And the prevailing southerly winds during the May-October paddling season are a blessing when you’re travelling north along the east coast, as we were.

Most importantly, seeing the land from the water gives you a unique and somehow complete perspective of this island wilderness.

One of the great things about having a whole week in one place is that you get into the rhythm of it, you get to feel where you are. Waking up in my tent on our first morning on the island, it struck me just where that was: camped on a deserted beach on a virtually uninhabited island, a day’s paddle from the nearest town. The only other human beings apart from my seven companions were small groups of bushwalkers we’d occasionally spot from our kayaks as they wandered along the beach (and even then I wasn’t entirely sure some of them weren’t cassowaries). Unlike the bushwalkers, however, we had the privilege of leaving the shore and exploring the island’s sea side.

Each morning we’d set off early to make the most of a glassy sea and paddle along at the pace of a stroll, mesmerised by the view that changed with the light and the swiftly-moving clouds. Parts of the island are so tropically mountainous – high peaks that wear lush green skirts of rainforest hemmed with golden beaches – they look more like Tahiti than Australia.

From our vantage point on the water we peered into caves and crevices in the island’s rocky headlands and watched the ocean hurl itself against cliffs, sending spray 50 metres into the air. We also had a turtle’s eye view of the local wildlife: silent sea eagles and not-so-silent cockatoos; brown boobys that skimmed the crests of the waves just metres from the ends of our paddles; and yes, green and loggerhead turtles that would up-periscope their blunt heads to check us out.

And when we came ashore at the end of our paddling day (which was usually the middle of the day), we got to explore the land as well. Not being limited to the beaches accessible by walking tracks, we’d find ones where ours were the only footprints, set up camp on the thin strip of sand that divided the sea from the rainforest, and spend whole afternoons exploring what seemed like our very own island paradise.

After paddling all morning under a hot sun it was a relief to wander barefoot along sandy paths that led through cool, dark forests populated by green ants and Lawyer Vines (so named because their thorny hooks have snagged many an unsuspecting bushwalker). Purple quandong fruits, staple food of the cassowary, littered the paths like marbles. On one track we came across a Matchbox Bean vine like Jack’s beanstalk; its gnarled tendrils were as thick as a man’s leg and one of them had pulled an entire tree to its death.

One afternoon we spent a couple of lazy hours at a freshwater pool where we rinsed the salt off and lay on sun-warmed rocks before walking back to camp. Another day we stopped late morning at Zoe Bay, pulling our boats up onto mud flats before trekking to Zoe Falls. We heard the water before we saw it – a high cascade pouring itself into a deep green pool that looked perfect for swimming.

“Any nasties in here?” asked Dave, one of my fellow paddlers, before diving in. It was a reasonable question. We were, after all, far from medical aid, and saltwater crocodiles were known to inhabit some of the island’s waterways (predominantly those on the western side of the island).

“Only the leopard perch,” said James, one of our two guides, smiling mischievously.
We all looked at each other, suddenly concerned.

“Sorry, jungle perch, harmless,” he relented. “And no, no crocs either.”

Lovely though the rainforest was, the prospect of a sunset always lured us back to camp before dark. We’d have dinner on the beach, inside a circle of candles we’d stuck into the sand, before retiring to our tents just above the high water mark where we’d fall asleep to the shush of waves that sounded like they were about to lick the toes of our sleeping bags.

It was a week of living simply, replacing the daily rituals we take for granted back home with new ones – the ebb and flow of coming ashore, unpacking the boats and setting up camp, then reversing the process the next morning – all undertaken in an unhurried and unworried frame of mind. We were castaways stripped of our big-city lives. All we had were our kayaks, our camping gear, enough food for seven days, and each other.

The big picture came back into focus on the afternoon of Day 3 when we hiked up to Nina Peak, 321 metres above our beachside campsite. Scrambling through the bush onto the granite saddle, we came to a windy mountaintop with full-circle views and Hinchinbrook spread out before us like a 3-D map. It was all there: the mangrove-clad west coast, the dazzling east-coast beaches, melaleuca forests and coastal scrub, all framing a mass of green bushland that was dominated by Mt Bowen (Queensland’s third highest peak), its 1121-metre head lost in the clouds. Behind all this grandeur, mainland Australia was reduced to a grey-green smudge on the horizon.

Paddling Hinchinbrook is a humbling experience. When they weren’t being dwarfed by massive peaks and ridge lines, our tiny kayaks were being swallowed whole by swells that made us lose sight of each other. It felt vulnerable to be out in deep water, being rocked by waves that threatened to capsize us, but it also felt like a great adventure. And sometimes the elements conspired to help us…

The day we rounded Cape Sandwich, halfway up the island’s east coast, we found the wind suddenly behind us, and the call went up for the sails. Sails? Surely our guides were toying with us again. But within minutes we’d learned how to bring our kayaks together and rig up a tarp as a spinnaker, with two of our paddles as masts, whilst James and Mike (our other guide) broke away to surf the swell like a pair of dolphins.

On the afternoon of Day 6 we finally left the island that had been our constant companion all week. And as we dragged our kayaks ashore for the last time – on Wheeler Island, just off the northern tip of Hinchinbrook – before heading back to Mission Beach the next day, I looked back the way we’d come. After six days and 90 kilometres Hinchinbrook was still there, dominating the southern skyline. Like an eerie painting whose eyes follow you around the room, Hinchinbrook Island – and the sense that you’ve experienced an untouched and supremely special place – stays with you long after you leave.

Louise Southerden paddled Hinchinbrook Island with World Expeditions. For more information call 1300 720 000 or go to www.worldexpeditions.com.au

World Heritage in danger

Despite the fact that Hinchinbrook Island and the shallow Hinchinbrook Channel are both World Heritage-listed, an adjacent area on the mainland (called Port Hinchinbrook) has been a hotbed of controversy since the mid-1980s.

Property developers initially proposed a 1500-bed resort complex encorporating a boat harbour for the site – which is only a few hundred metres wide but extends for over five kilometres north-south along the coastline facing the island. The conservation movement protested on the grounds that the project, particularly its boat traffic, would adversely affect the Hinchinbrook Channel, one of the world’s last sanctuaries for endangered dugongs (there are only 4000 left along the entire Queensland coast) as well as a new species of snubfin dolphin.

In 1995 the Federal Government halted construction, but that decision was overturned in 1996 when the newly-elected Howard Government publicly supported the development. The case was taken to the Federal Court – it was a World Heritage issue not unlike Tasmania’s Franklin Dam debate in 1982/83 – but the conservationists lost. A blockade seemed the only option, and protesters moved in in 1997 to focus public attention on the issue.

Since then, the development has been steadily moving forward (the completed Stage I includes over 100 residential dwellings, a marina and shopping area), despite two Senate Inquiries and persistent opposition from environmental groups such as the Alliance to Save Hinchinbrook (ASH).

Current status: At the time of going to press, the ASH is taking the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the Supreme Court for issuing a permit to build breakwalls that will extend into the Hinchinbrook Channel. Stage II of the development (a 26-hectare canal-estate including 335 more residential dwellings, an 18-hole golf course and 60-room hotel) is currently under public review.

For updates and information: Contact Margaret Moorhouse at the Alliance to Save Hinchinbrook on (07) 4772 4052 or 0427 724 052, or go to www.hinchinbrook.info