Author: illawarra2017

A crocodile ATTACKED our dinghy!!!!! It was really scary.  We caught some very big fish!!!!! We cooked them on a fire on the beach. Some baby turtles had hatched and we saw their foot prints. We also saw some really detailed crocodile prints in the sand. Now we are arriving in Darwin after traveling 90 nautical miles (167km) in one day and night.i

We left Gove to go to Darwin. At our first stop I caught a coral trout and Richard ( our friend who is sailing with us to Darwin) caught a trevally. At the next stop we caught 9 trevally, 2 queen fish and one rock cod. We also found some aboriginal rock art. Yesterday we had a snack with some of Richards adopted aboriginal family. Now I am officially an uncle (in aboriginal culture) to someone older than me!!!!!!!

We went to Gapuwiyak for 3 days, Gapuwiyak is an aboriginal community near Gove. We went to collect pandanis leaves and dye with some local people. We got yellow dye from the roots of a funny tree and the red dye from a certain type of grass. To cut up the roots for the yellow dye we had to use a machete!!!!!!! The next day we put the dye in boiling water with the pandani leaves. They use the coloured pandani leaves to make baskets and mats. We went to the local art gallery and I bought a didgeridoo, it is really hard to play but makes a great sound. I played tiggy with sone of the local aboriginal kids who are really fast. We went fishing and at the fishing area there was grey mud knee deep. We didn’t catch any fish.The aboriginal community was really interesting. There was a lot of red dirt. Now we are going to sail to Darwin.

We sailed across the Gulf of Carpenteria in three days and nights. It was really boring. In the mornings the swell was two metres+. My mum saw a sea snake go past at eye level. It was on top of a wave!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We got really sea sick. I don’t think I’ve ever  been so happy to see land before.

We went to Cooktown to see Captain Cooks ships anchor, there was a canon as well. They were really rusty and old. We are following where the Endeavour sailed up the coast of Australia in our boat. At Cape Melville there were giant centipede and crocodile tracks in the sand. We stayed at a tiny tropical island for a night (Morris Island). Near Shelburne Bay I found a really, really big shell, it was almost completely buried in the sand, it’s ENORMOUS!!!!!! Today we sailed around Cape York!!!!!!!! It was really cool, we went to the very point of Australia and there was a sign at the very tip. Now we are sailing across the Gulf of Carpentaria for 3 days and nights without stopping (boring). PS the answer to the question of how long would it take to count to a billion (without stopping) is 347 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We went to Cairns to see the Waifs(band). It was really good and LOUD!!! Then we went to see the Undarra lava tubes. They were really cool but had lot’s of bat’s in them. TEST: How long would it take you to count to one billion? please give me your answer. We went to Mt Isa to pick up a four wheel drive. It took us 8 hours to get there. After that we went to a nice camp site and we found a cane toad in one of our backpacks. My dad pretended to eat it. There were a lot (on almost every tree and stone) of green tree frog’s as well. At lunch the next day there was a big bull that wandered through the bush. I got really scared. We went to a fossil site at Riversleigh and there was the bones and gizzard stones of a big( giant)bird. We went to Lawn Hill National park, there was a nice gorge that we kayaked up. At the end there was a waterfall. It was really strong and I sat under it. That night when we came back to camp our BBQ was covered in bitey ants, you could stomp your foot at them and they would follow you if you ran away and attack you. There bites really hurt and were really itchy afterwards so we had to move camp. We found two stowaways in our kayak, they were green tree frogs (I’m writing a story called Mr and Mrs Frog and it’s based on them). On the way back to Port Douglas we stayed at a cattle station (West Leichhardt Station) where they were doing mustering (rounding the cows up) I got to ride in a big, old cattle truck that broke down half way to the cattle yards. The station owner asked us to come and have some pork chops with him and the ringers (stockmen), they were really tasty, we also had some billy tea. The station was 300,000 acres big!!!!! It was really dusty and hot.

Today we sailed to Lowe Islands and saw a few turtles. We’re heading off to Cape York tomorrow, it’s going to take a long time to get there.

We went to Beaver Reef. There was a sandy island in the middle of the reef.It had no trees but it was covered in birds. Some of the birds slept on our boat for the night, 2 slept on the rail, 1 slept on the anchor and one slept in the boom. On Hinchinbrook Island we saw some really weird creatures, they looked like sea slugs.