Cattle Crossing to Starboard

Charlie checks out the view

As we wove past freighters and work boats, and inhaled the dust of heavy industry on our way into Gladstone Harbour I was reminded of a town review I’d once read. It was in Lonely Planet, Mexico and the sole entry for the place was, “X has a bus station and a train station. Use them to get out.”

Gladstone: not even a little bit scenic

Happily a cheap mooring buoy, even cheaper laundry and the chance to see my first wild red-tailed black cockatoo soon redeemed Gladstone. But in all honesty we didn’t really hit the area’s highlight until we had motored out past the coal heaps, refineries and LNG plants and on into Curtis Narrows.

We could have left Gladstone the way we came in and carried on up the coast in the deep water. But who turns down a chance to meander through a mangrove wetland. The chance of bugs and salt water crocs aside—it was cool to make our way through narrows that can only be traversed at high tide.

winding through the narrows

We hit the shallowest patch at the highest tide. Normally dry at low tide we wound our way past markers and squeezed past the few boats that came from the opposite direction. At one point we passed a fence—when we called Maia to see it she was surprised to realise we were sailing over a cattle crossing.

Monte Christo Cattle Station, was established on Curtis Island in the 1860s (once upon a time they even bred horses there for the British India Army). But time, and a huge amount of development on Curtis Island, means the station may have seen its last round up two years ago.

By mid-morning we back out at sea—Great Keppel Island chosen as our next stop.