We're heading up to Henshinbrook Island, which is a small island at the far north
Queensland coast between Cairns and Townsville.
There's only one trail on the island, the Thornsbourne Trail, which runs on the east coast.
The rest of the island is remote wilderness.
The only way to access the island is by a small boat.
Today's the first day of our walk, and we're walking from the drop off point from the ferry
and Georgia's point to Mulligan Falls, so we'll be camping at Mulligan Falls, which
is a fantastic little waterfall and billabong for a souvenir.
So we've just walked off the beach and now into the jungle, so it's nice and cool in
here, get to set my son for a little while and we're going to walk across the ridge line
and then back down to the coast for a little while.
So we've arrived at Mulligan Falls, not a better walk, I can hear the falls from here
so it must be pretty close and this is where we're going to set up camp for the night.
We cool off at Mulligan Falls before we set up camp in the forest nearby.
Most of the campgrounds have spectacular waterfalls and pools for swimming, they're excellent
for cooling off after the heat of the war.
A funny goaner is wandering around our camp looking for any food scraps, so we have to
keep our food packed away from him.
We've just left campground on the start of day 2, today's walk is about 7.5km, it's
over a few ridge lines which are quite rocky, so a bit slow walking but not too far and
we end up at Zoo Bay which has apparently got us quite a spectacular waterfall there
and I think there's even a few streams along the way, so we'll see how we go.
You're carrying the smallest pack?
I'm carrying the biggest load down here, 30 weeks soon, 29.5km.
So we're at our first waterfall here, it's only been half an hour from the start of the
hike so we're going down for a dip and we'll cool off a bit.
Excellent swimming in this swimming hole so we're off now for the next stage of the
walk.
We'll start by doing some rock hopping down the river for a little while and head back
down to the coast.
It's really hot and sweaty going through this jungly section.
We're over the major ridge, once we get to the top of the next ridge it will be all downhill
to Zoo Bay.
We're now at the top of Zoo Hall, so we've got a huge hill here, looks like we've got
5m deep so we're going to jump in there and cool off all the last one on the sand down
to the ocean.
Nice.
So we're coming down to Zoo 4th, this deep section here, the worst bit looks okay.
This is the base of Zoe Falls, it's a spectacular waterfall with lots of fish in the pool and
a great place to cool off before we head off to camp.
We've made it to the campground, looks like it's right on the beach.
This is the beach at Zoe Bay, nice long curving beach but you can't swim here because of the
risk of crocodiles in the water, so you have to stick to swimming in the fresh water creeks.
It's Rogan Josh with lamb and peas, it does look good, it's rehydrated really well, this
is our first time we're rehydrating a dehydrated mill.
So it's lovely fun.
Day 3 on the walk.
We camped at Little Zoe Bay last night, very nice campground on the beach, and we're heading
off to Little Rams today.
We have to head up this beach for a little way, then we're going to head inland and I
round some mangroves and then over a couple of quick crossings and then back down to the
beach for the next camp spot, so it's about 10.5km today, so it should be another good
walk.
We've passed through the swampy section, now we're into this nice forest, it's quite
tight and just some filtered light, so it's nice and cool, gives us good protection from
the sun.
We can cool off in the strain crossings as well, which is awesome.
Good thing about this walk is that it's not really busy, the whole walk is limited to
a maximum of 40 people at once that can do that walk, so you only tend to see a few people
at the camp spots, and a couple of people on the actual trail, so it gives us a nice
remote experience.
It's got to be an easy way.
Ah, no ice.
A cyclone came through here last year, it's pulled a lot of the trees down and you can
see that trap guys have actually managed to cut through most of them.
It's just about top of the saddle now, so it's a bit of a steep walk up and it should
be all downhill to Ramsey Bay, it just wants to get over the top there.
So we're back out of the bush now and back into a nice forest, which is a lot cooler
and the beach is just ahead.
So we made it down to Little Ramsey Bay, it's a beautiful pristine beach, all we have to
do is rock up around this headland and then we'll be on to the main beach and that'll
be our camp spot for tonight.
We've got an absolutely awesome camp down here, we're right on the beach front and we've
even got a nice little bit of one right next to it, so we'll swim in that for the fresh
water and we've got a whole beach to ourselves, so it's awesome.
We're having a freshly caught dusky flathead, down here on a half from swimming in the ocean
to in the pot here, here we are, we're just poaching it because that's the easiest thing
to do camping.
Here we have a little bit of apple, a fair bit of crumble and a whole heap of custard
and it's really yummy, it's called apple crumble, see the clouds coming over the range
today, so we might be getting a bit of a change of weather tomorrow.
So it's a much shorter walk today, it's only about four and a half k's, we'll be walking
from Little Ramsey Bay into Nina Bay, just about walking up the beach here and then we're
going to cut that over the headland and then it shouldn't be too far to the beach again.
So we're filling up with water from this beautiful fresh creek after getting a bit
lower on the last side of our campsite.
So we've come over the headland now and we've reached Boulder Bay, that was pretty easy
coming out of the top there, not too high and now it's just round to Little Nina Bay
and we'll be there.
This boy has been washed up on Boulder Bay so this is another effect of the cyclone
that came through last year, right up the top of the beach so the surf must have been huge
to wash this massive thing so far up.
So here we are at Little Nina Beach, a really flat wide beach so the tide's way out at
the moment so we've got lots of beach and our campground should be just up the beach
a bit, pretty easy walk today.
Smashing it on a brick and I tried peeling right outside, it doesn't look like in the
movie so just a little peel and I don't know how to open a coconut, tried again and then
just one big smash, cracked it and poured the water out, tastes really good actually.
Now this white stuff is awesome.
All set up camp, another awesome campground right off the beach so we've got a perfect
view in here, nice and cool on the trees too, let's go get out of the sun.
Excellent camping again at Nina Beach, we had the whole place to ourselves last night,
a really nice campground, a little bit warmer last night but we've got a nice overcast day
this morning for our two hour walk out to catch the ferry this morning.
Okay we've come over the ridge and on our way down to Ramsey Bay now so just see the
beach poking through the trees now so we should be down to the beach in a second and it's
still a flat run up the beach and across to the ferry wall.
The Thornsbourne Trail certainly deserves to be named one of the world's best walks
with pristine beaches, waterfalls and pools are swimming, great campgrounds and spectacular
mountains, it's definitely one of the best walks in the world.
Thanks for watching, I'll see you in the next one, peace out.
