Pirates of Hinchinbrook Island - South Zoe beach to Banksia Bay

Thursday 28th July - South Zoe Bay to Banksia Bay

A 12km trip with an expected 3 hour paddle time in easy conditions - well that's what the plan said.

We woke up at about 7am with an incoming tide. The winds had blown up over night with the seas quite lumpy with large swell - between 1 to 1.5m meters. We were on the water by 9.30am - the weather forecast said that the winds were going to blow up during the day - so getting started earlier would mean that we would miss the worst of the winds that would develop over the day.

Once on the water and still within a safe paddle back to Zoe beach we rafted up on water, discussed the merits of continuing given the conditions and our experience levels. We decided to head out to he point on the northern end of Zoe Bay and to reassess. Because we were on a lee shore we needed to keep a couple of kms off the shore line in the event  that one of us got tipped out. We certainly did not want to be getting bashed up on the rocks.

A reassessment with the decision to push on. We concentrated and needed to loosen up and to roll with the swell. At least we were not getting ocean waves. As we headed out the swell got a little more challenging hitting our boats on the broadside. The winds turned in our favour shifting from eastern to south easterly. We had swell and wind to our backs making the going easier and faster. We made good way.

Passing a fishing boat at Agnes Island we were quickly on the lee side of the island with the worst of the swell and wind behind us we made our way to Banksia Bay. The designated camp site was on the north side of the beach, fine for walkers but no good for sea kayakers due to the exposed rocks at this end of the beach. We chose the southern end of the beach and found a great set of camp sites that could fit us all in. We were the only campers for the night.

Given the wind and wave assistance, we made excellent time taking about 2 hours to reach Banksia Bay - arriving at around 11.30am.

After lunch we went exploring. Finding wonderful fresh oysters along the way and eating several of them - you cannot get them any fresher. We used rock to knock the top of the shell off, scooping out the delicious oyster before devouring it. What would have been great would have been to collect a bunch of oysters, lighting a camp site and sitting the oysters on the coals to open up - but alas you cannot light fires on Hinchinbrook - so we had them alla naturale.

We returned to our camp site, then walked back to the designated camp site and in search of water. After about 10 minutes of walking we connected up to the main Thorsburn trail. A short walk along this track we came to some wonderful fresh water pools. It was great to wash the salt of the day off.

Coming back to camp we were treated to a beautiful sunset as the sun set behind Mt Bowen - at 1,101 meters it is the 45th highest mountain in QLD.

Tonight was Pearl Cous Cous and Tuna for dinner and all washed down with another great red.