Lady Musgrave Island and Coral Cay

Anchor a-weigh at 4 am from Bundaberg, with the moon already set, it was dark and eerie motor-sailing out of the Burnett River.  Blue lights flashing on the leads and red and green lights flashing on the channel markers were the only breaks in the darkness.

Just as we left the channel a loud bang and our outhaul had broken again, so we reefed the main to keep sailing. 

Pods of dolphins entertained us as we sailed, leaping and cavorting all around the boat.  Up to 20 in the first group, it was hard to tell if they were the same pod reappearing every hour or a different pod.  Nonetheless, they all appeared to be having fun and we loved their company so far from land.

The entrance channel to the lagoon can be tricky, as one ketch found out, landing on a bommie then had to wait until high tide to move.  Inside the cay was very calm, the water so clear we could see fish and coral everywhere, turtles bobbing up to watch us.

Perfect for kayaking to the beach and walking through the forest track full of nesting black noddies, who took no notice of us.  On the ground shearwater tunnels are everywhere, while buff-banded rails stroll casually around the forest floor, unafraid of humans.

                                         

Lady Musgrave Island

The entrance was every bit as scary as we thought it would be, but we made it through into the coral cay - just amazing!  Phew!  Relaxing now - exploring tomorrow.

Bundy Dolphins

As we sailed off to Lady Musgrave Island a pod of 10 - 12 dolphins played in our bow wave, leaping right out of the water, swimming around the boat and generally showing off!

more shorebirds...

The afternoon count included around 100 whimbrels, 3 red capped plovers, 3 grey-tailed tattlers, 3 ruddy turnstones in handsome breeding plumage, 1 lonely bar-tailed godwit and 1 lonely great knot, neither had much colouring, maybe juveniles,  and a mystery sandpiper with not much colour (common?).  All having a good feed in the mud!

Shorebirds at Moon Point, Fraser Island

On high tide we took our binoculars and scope to the beach to see the shorebirds on the sand spit (at high tide the birds move up the beach and are easier to see together).

About 100 red-necked stints, 17 greater sand plovers, 3 grey-tailed tattlers and 2 pied oystercatchers were sharing the sand spit with 4 caspian terns, 7 crested terns with 2 juveniles, 1 silver gull (there's always one!) and about 20 gull-billed terns and one very small mystery tern, which we couldn't identify.  Not one leg flag among them.

We checked the outer beach via the lagoon but the birds were too far away to identify.  One sea-eagle in a tree having a good look around.

Commando Walk at Kingfisher Bay, Fraser Island

After Cyclone Iris, at last it was almost sunny and great for a walk so Olaf, Peter, Toni and The Larry-kin walked up the beach to the old logging jetty, where the bush walk to the WWII Commando Base begins.  The size of the trees are amazing for a sand island and we saw and heard some cheerful bush birds along the track – honeyeaters, pardalotes, grey shrike-thrush and spangled drongos among them.  There are so many interesting ferns in the vine thickets and after all the rain many funghi were blooming again.

The Commando Base was a secret training camp from 1943 and even those soldiers who volunteered for the mission never knew where they were being deployed.  It could be Malaya, Singapore, New Guinea or the Phillipines and there were teams from many other countries involved.

From there the walk goes either to Lake Mackenzie or back to Kingfisher Resort, which we chose, based on the weather – whether we held our luck or it would rain again.  Before Annie collected us from the beach we had to don the sunnies, with a happy sunny end to the outing.

Meeting Patch and Mystique

We met our friends for brekky at Barnacles, the cafe where the dolphins turn up each morning, but we arrived after the feeding, just as all the tourists were leaving.  I found these books and discovered that the author, Norma, was sitting at the next table and she offered to sign the books (and, she also has a granddaughter Emma). 

As we were now the last customers in the cafe, and ready to leave, a bloke called out that three more dolphins had just arrived...

The procedure is very strict with Dept Environment and Heritage allowing only one feed per dolphin per day, so they had to check whether these three had already been fed.  They hadn’t arrived with the usual pod for the morning feed, so the cafe called one of the team back to feed them some fish as we waited with the trio.  The two older dolphins, Patch and Mystique, just sat on their big tails in the sandy shallows, leaning on their fins, patiently waiting, while the young one, Ozzie, swam about.  

It’s the same Mystique in the books who was thought to be female, but later found to be male.  He had some serious wounds on his side, apparently from a shark attack, but they were healing well, according to the ranger.

Mystique the Dolphin

Dolphins of Tin Can Bay