Living it up on Hinchinbrook

MYSTERIOUS, broody and almost untouched, Hinchinbrook Island doesn't offer the standard Barrier Reef island experience, writes Alison Cotes.

Missionary Bay/Tourism Queensland

CAPTAIN Cook might have been the world's greatest navigator, but he missed out on two major discoveries on his way up the east coast of Australia.

He sailed right past the heads of what we now call Sydney Harbour, and he thought that the huge mass of Hinchinbrook Island was part of the mainland.

Vast, broody, mysterious and still almost untouched, Hinchinbrook doesn't offer the standard Barrier Reef island experience, but instead suggests adventure and even the possibility of danger.

Or so it seems as you gaze on the great mountainous jungles that dominate the skyline.

Surely crocodiles lurk in those mangrove creeks, just waiting for a brash adventurer to put a toe in the water although, as we Aussies reassured the lone German backpacker who was about to do the Thorsborne Trail, he needn't worry about crocs, as the sharks have eaten them all.

To get to Hinchinbrook Island, if you don't have your own boat, it means a trip on the Hinchinbrook Explorer II or, in our case, because it was off-season and there were only seven passengers, in a smaller faster boat, more intimate and more fun.

Skipper Emma Schmidt must have the best job in the world. A third-generation Cardwell resident, she skippers the small launch and crews the big one, and knows more about the island than anyone except her father.

It was a dull day with a few squalls, so we all got quite wet, and saw no dugongs, which were safely hidden in the shallow seagrass beds of Missionary Bay, even though it's only 2.5m deep.

Forty minutes later we made our first stop at the Wilderness Lodge, and here our pre-determined choices began, according to our fitness and energy levels.

A couple of people chose to stop at the resort itself for the day, to laze in the big swimming pool, play at the beautiful Orchid Beach, go for gentle walks along the seafront or through the rainforest to Cape Richards, and lunch at the Lodge with its terrifying Komodo Dragon (it takes a minute or so before you realise it's a fake).

The resort has had a makeover, and the food is better, and the rooms more user-friendly and inviting than they were a few years ago. Other voyagers stay on the boat for another 10 minutes and are put off at Machusla Bay, where they are given a bottle of water and a backpack of tucker and left to make their own way back to the lodge in a gentle two-hour walk along the beach and a narrow bush track.

The really intrepid (and the two of us) stay on board to have a different adventure in the mangrove creeks with the possibility of seeing crocs.

Deep in the mangroves there's a jetty which gives on to a boardwalk across the tip of the island to the fabled Ramsay Beach, where it's really Robinson Crusoe territory, and the only footprints you're likely to see are your own.

The sea was angry, although I've seen it clear as blue glass, and it was here we dropped the German medico, who was going to do the 32km four-day walk along the famous Thorsborne Trail, where he was unlikely to see anyone at all, as only 40 people are permitted on the trail at any one time, and the pass system is strictly policed by National Parks.

We helped him reorganise his backpack and bade him farewell, watching his lonely figure stride off through the rain with the massive peaks of the mountainous backbone of the island, dominated by Mt Bowen (1142m).

Out of sight soon meant out of mind, and we mucked around on the beach until it was time to tramp back to the launch and return to the lodge for a leisurely lunch of prawns, scallops, oysters, mussels etc until it was time for the 3pm trip back to the mainland.

They were five precious hours, and the whole experience can be done as a day trip from Townsville or Cairns, but why not make it a proper holiday and stay a night or two?

You can stay at the resort on the island itself: the charmingly eccentric Mudbrick Manor, a kilometre south of Cardwell, which took Ken and Bev Stephens 7000 hours to build from scratch; or at the sophisticated elegance of the four-star Port Hinchinbrook Resort and marina on the mainland.

- Sunday Mail (QLD)