Townsville, as seen from the water, quite the hill isn't it?

I was impressed by this former bank building, built around the turn of the century. A lot of the buildings in the down town area were off this vintage, a pleasure to the eyes.

From Townsville we sailed to Orpehus Island where we found this sign, not doubt torn down by cyclone Yasi that went through this area earlier this year. It apparently was the biggest cyclone to ever hit Australia.

Up in the bush we found this ruin. The fellow that built it apparently had to give up because he got a coral cut which became infected. I was impressed by the building and particularly liked all the windows he had planned to put in.

This is the sugar cane factory at the entry to the Hinchbrook Channel. The channel itself was quite dramatic with large hills on either side of it. It was tricky getting in the entrance being fairly shallow, a couple of times we saw 0.0 on the depth meter. We draw 1.8m and Barry has it offset by 2.0 meters so I never know when we hit zero whether or not we are going to go 0.2 below zero or not so we just sit and hope the boat doesn't stop. We entered on a rising tide so would have just had to wait awhile to float off but I am glad we didn't bottom out again. We are stopping at a spot called Dunk Island today and I hope to make it all the way to Cairns tomorrow. It is quite a ways and the winds are light so not sure we will make it.

The Hinchbrook Channel, living the dream!