Sunny Yamba/Iluka, and on to the Sunshine State

By Fi

After arriving in Yamba, we took some time to explore the town. With the Queensland border still closed, we were in no rush and spent a few nights here. There is a great market on Wednesday mornings from 07:00 near the headland that sells local meat and veges, cured meats, gin, sushi, cheese and dairy, and so we stocked up on some yummy produce and groceries. Here is Adrian and Bernie enjoying a walk at the beach after visiting the markets.

We’d heard some stories as we travelled up the coast that Iluka was “packed full of boats waiting on the border” so we had been a little dubious about adding to the numbers, but on a sunny morning, we decided to pop over and have a look, and there was plenty of space for us to drop our anchor and visit one of NSW coastal town gems. This gorgeous beach is along one side of the anchorage. Behind me is the dock where we set our dingy to go ashore.

Iluka is a small coastal town, and the bay where we anchored is right next to the pub and the fish coop. Iluka prawns are some of the best we have tasted. We went for some walks around town, and out to the surf beach where Bernie got to play with his bumper things. Spotted this little guy eating at the side of the road too (Echidna). Iluka was a great town to keep us stocked up, and we also leaned a little on the Post Office in town as we needed to get a few things ordered for the inevitable boat jobs that we would have to do. The most pressing being the anchor light.

When we anchored in Iluka, and as dusk settled in, I turned on the anchor light, and to my dismay realised it wasn’t working. Fast forward a few days later, and we had enlisted the help of our friends on some other boats, and borrowed a bosuns chair (chair/harness device that I sit in to go up) and hoisted me up the mast to figure out the problem. It was about 3 hours later, and a lot of tools going up and down, and discussions, that we all realised the light had no serviceable parts and needed total replacing. It did need replacing anyways, after I mangled it trying to figure out how it worked whilst gripping on to the mast with my legs 14m up. This photo shows how I had to basically rip it off at one screw because the flat head screw was cheap and nasty and I couldn’t get the screwdriver to stay on to get it out. This was all fine in the end, and a week or so later we had our new light and up I went up again crimped the wires, tested it, and screwed it on. Works well now!

Around our time in Iluka we also cruised the Clarence River and wrote a post here: https://fiandadriansailing.com/travelling-inland-the-clarence-river/

As the dolphins circled around the bay night after night, we found ourselves settling in to the Iluka life, making friends, exploring the trails, trying out new recipes on the boat, and attempting new skills. In some respects, I stopped being cranky around this point about the Queensland border because we wouldn’t have had these experiences in this stunning little place, or perhaps even met some new friends for who’s friendship we are so grateful! Oh, also new toys – our new toys are two stand up paddle boards and this is my first attempt ever.

And one day, the news came that Queensland was opening up to us Southerners, and the race was on! The borders opened midday on the 10th of July, and whilst the weather window for our boat would have been okay-ish, we decided to let the bigger faster boats head up en masse and we’d see how they got on. Plus we could partake a little more in the delicious local seafood. All was fine and we planned our own passage for a few days later.

We planned to head north on the 14th of July, as the swells were quite low, which would mean leaving Yamba/Iluka over the river bar would be straightforward. We left at midday on a rainy and cool day, and planned to stop in at Byron Bay for the evening. During our travels, the whale activity was epic, and we saw many whales breaching, flapping around and playing quite close to us. Here you can see a whale just breaching out of the water. So awe inspiring. We finally dropped the anchor at 10pm in the rolly Byron Bay anchorage.

We had a little bit of sleep rolling around, and the next morning picked up the anchor at 06:30 for our final leg across the border and into the Gold Coast. I had been in touch with Maritime Safety Queensland to ensure our safe passage across the border, and had been assured that the authorities were aware of our approval to cross the border and we would have no troubles. It was so exciting off the Tweed Heads/Coolangatta coast line to know that we were entering Queensland finally and more adventures were to come, plus more whales, dolphins and the biggest turtle I have ever seen were there to welcome us! We travelled through the Gold Coast seaway late afternoon (shown here), and picked our way north to a marina we had booked arriving about 17:00. Big day and we were ecstatic to arrive in Queensland. The plan from here is to head into Moreton Bay and then further north to Mooloolaba and Noosa as weather permits, and as quickly as we are comfortable with.

Bernie is doing well! And so photogenic.

Travelling by small boat we have been surprised by the different types of waterways we can use. This week we travelled 50km inland up the Clarence river to Grafton after having spent some lovely time at Iluka and Yamba.

After a 2 hour motor inland from Iluka, our first obstacle was the Harwood bridge. Although the new highway bridge has been built, the old bridge remains in use for local traffic. The old bridge isn’t high enough to let our 14m mast through, but with 24 hours notice they open the bridge for travelling yachts and we had booked it for 10:30 that morning.

We pulled up at little towns along the way which have public pontoons big enough for a couple of boats to stay for the night and welcoming pubs often overlooking the river. With lots of shallow water we sometimes posted a double watch on the bow.

Our first stop was Harwood. We were surprised by this large partially completed houseboat that pulled up behind us to resupply before heading up the river. It had come down the coast from Ballina that day crossing two bars and was heading up the river where it would be completed, although we didn’t spot it again as we travelled up stream. We had a great meal at the pub, and could see the boat from our dinner table. Overnight the temperatures dipped to significantly lower than we were used to near the coast.

Maclean was our next stop to resupply. There are many small trawlers in this section of the river although they were not active during the day. We met our first cross river ferry at Lawrence. These use cables across the river so we needed to time our crossing when the ferries were on the bank and the lines are slack. The ferries are surprisingly well used with queues of traffic on both sides of the river mid-week.

We stayed at Ulmarra overnight and enjoyed the great pub on the river and many small crafty shops. Again the temperatures overnight were about 1 degree celsius and we lamented not having more insulation! We do appreciate our little heater though on nights like this. The next day we did a day trip up the river to Grafton where the low bridge prevents any further progress for us upriver.

The next night we stopped at a small town called Brushgrove. Bernie especially enjoyed Brushgrove where we found a big park where he could chase his bumpers. Again there is a lovely local pub where we could have a beer and still admire our little home on the dock.

There is lots of sugar cane grown in the area, as well as the large processing factory on the river. On our last night back at Harwood they were burning the cane as we went for a dog walk along the river.

These guys were a feature up and down the river. At Harwood this Pelican would complain with a deep guttural growl every time we came out on deck and upset his normally quiet pontoon.

From Harwood we had a rainy and wet motor back to our now familiar anchorage at Iluka. The anchorage was steadily filling up with vessels preparing for the Queensland border opening (of which we are one).

We’ll be looking to move further north in the coming days, now that the border is open and we both have our QLD declaration passes at the ready.