Interesting facts about Queensland:

• The capital of Queensland is Brisbane.
• The capital city of Brisbane is also known as ‘River City’ due to the serpentine Brisbane River that flows through it.
• Queensland houses five World Heritage listed preservation areas, namely Australian Fossil Mammal Sites at Riversleigh in the Gulf Country, Central Eastern Rainforest Reserves, Fraser Island, Great Barrier Reef and the Wet Tropics of Queensland.
• Towards the south of Queensland, the Gold Coast is located, which is the surfing and party Mecca of the state.
• Queensland was initially sited by Europeans in the 1600s.
• Queensland boasts of the fastest growing economy in entire Australia.
• Queensland has the lowest cost of living in comparison with the other Australian states.
• Queensland’s coastline stretches over 7400 km with the corals of the Great Barrier Reef fringing the eastern coastline for over 2000 kilometers.

Location: Peppers Palm Bay, Long Island

Weather: Another hazy but sunny day – when’s it going to go away!? 28°c

After a late night chatting away to Paully, the manager of Peppers Palm Bay, the unescapable clanging of my alarm clock was still too loud to hide from…it was only 5.00am- what on earth would I need to be up at this ungodly hour for?

The answer was just pulling up onto the beach: Armed with my luggage and a considerable hamper-breakfast I made my way down to meet the good ship Scamper, my transport for the next leg of the journey.

S-CAMP-ER is a brilliant idea; one that’s so simple you’d think “why on earth didn’t I think of that?!” An aluminium, high speed barge with a low draught allowing it to be taken over shallow reef and right up onto the numerous sandy beaches around the Whitsundays supplying, resupplying, dropping off and collecting campers from the campsites which are scattered around the islands – what a cracking way to earn a living!

Unloading our kayaks and kit from the barge we hauled it up the sandy beach making a pile at our prospective campsite and once the drone of the engine has disappeared we were there all alone – wild camping on Whitsunday Island!

A few of the QWPS (Queensland Wildlife Parks and Services) rangers have been living on the island for the last few months slowly and surely building a new track to the highest point on the island – Whitsunday Peak. Dave and his merry team of men have toiled with picks, shovels, slings and buckets using nothing but materials sourced only on the island to create a roughly manicured safe means of reaching the summit – something visitors to the island have been doing by other routes for years, unfortunately to the detriment of the surrounding forest.

We decide we’re going to take on the challenge and try to reach the summit. I’ve seen it from my balcony on Hamilton Island and regularly thought about scaling its heights and now here’s my opportunity! The track’s really good now and it takes us just under an hour to ascend the 435 metres to the rocky summit, however, the recent lingering dust storm has meant there’s still a fair amount of haze hanging around and I struggle to see my humble abode off in the distance. We turn and head back down to the beach below and once there cool off in the ocean…it’s a hot job pacing through the forest you know.

Nari’s Beach is our location for the night and our kayaks are the means of getting there, excellent- I love paddling across the water and the hour long cruise around the coastline takes us past sandy beaches, rocky granite outcrops and mangrove backwaters. The affection I feel as we paddle in and out of little secret areas is unrivaled…talk about motivation for my kayaking project next year!

The sound of scraping sand on the hull signals our arrival on the beach, we haul our rides to above the high-tide line and set camp for the night. I tempt fate and position my tent as close as I can to the water line – this real ‘out there’ camping experience is fantastic and just what I wanted.

Heading to bed following dinner which is served just after the sun goes down means one thing – waking up damn early! As the first glimmer of light breaks the horizon I roll out of my tent to watch from the beauty of the sandy beach. In fact stuff sitting still – so I grab a kayak and head out by myself onto the water passing suspect swirls of water, diving turtles and the occasional jumping fish. A totally incredible experience.

There is work setup for me not just frolicking around having fun – my day involves acting as a ranger with the Parks and Wildlife Board and an hour later the Marine Parks Board barge arrives on the beach with Bryan and Brett – my colleagues for the afternoon.

Complete with my new uniform we headed off to the first port of call, Hook Island to service the camp toilets. Not the most desirable of jobs but an essential one for all of the campers out there. A quick brush out of the units, replace the toilet rolls and drop a few handfuls of lime into the long drop to neutralise the contents and the job’s finished!

Next thing to do is check each of the campers permits, it’s compulsory to purchase a pitch in advance of staying on each island (or the place could become overrun with boat owners I can tell you!), once they’ve all been referenced against the booking numbers it’s onto the next job…

Another part of the work the rangers do is to keep the mooring markers clean which designate where boats can tie up against and it was to become my job for the afternoon; hauling them onboard before scraping and scrubbing them clean of all the marine cling-ons which, after a few weeks floating, consider these their home.

After a hard day’s toil and work out in the open air and on the ocean, Brett steered our barge into Nara Inlet on Hook Island, a perfectly sheltered natural harbour which the indigenous Ngaro people of this area stayed in during times gone by. At the top of a steep climb there’s a cave in which numerous paintings have been created over the decades depicting different Aboriginal motifs. The images can only be speculated about what exactly they mean, but when you stand at the top of the walk and look at them it’s very easy to imagine you’re back at the time they were drawn there.

The rangers maintain and check the solar panels, battery and electric fence surrounding the caves which are designed to keep out ferrel goats…it also acts as a deterrent to people too!

The day draws to a close as we head back over an increasingly lumpy ocean and finally turn the last corner past Henning Island enroute to Hamilton’s marina. A final farewell to the boys and I trot off home very happy to have done a good day’s work finally…in some people’s eyes anyway!

End of day location: Hamilton Island via Whitsunday Island
Distance covered: 60kms