50 Days at Sea Comes to and End (Waterfalls & Island Life)

When you're on long-form camping trips everyone only generally sees the highlight reel on Instagram or Facebook or the rainbows, fires on the beach, sunset, pina coladas. Sometimes you get caught in the middle of a squall and it gets real cold. You on? Just pull it in steady. It'll come off. So the weather's turned on us today. It is pretty thick and set in with strong winds, thunderstorms and a hell of a lot of rain. We went out and tried to catch a feed of fish to no avail and we've come back. A boat pulled us up in the channel and they said to us, hey you guys camped down the end of the beach there under that iron roof? Well yeah, they're like oh we just grabbed a tent out of the ocean that was drifting away that had blown from the camp when this last storm come through but blew our tent out into the ocean, didn't have pegs in. So we've come back and yeah fortunately, absolutely legends if you see this thank you. They grabbed our tent from floating away to Indonesia and brought it and put it up here for us. But sort of the downside is that yeah it's full of water and salt and sand and it's bucketing down rain not to be dried out so it's all part of being out here doing it. The wet season is properly here and the boat is half full of water. Not good, nothing's pumping out of the middle. Just there's so much water in here. May be hard to get an appreciation for it but yeah it's sort of as rainy and windy as it gets. I don't know what our camp's going to look like on the island about four miles away but it's too rough to get over there so hopefully our tents are left. But yeah we just got to ride it out because it's not safe to travel on the ocean obviously. So we're just going to wait it out. It's probably been an hour and a half, two hours since we've been huddled up on the street. Yeah we'll play it by ear. Blue sky and sunshine. An absolute pleasure to see after the last 24 hours of being really cold and real wet. It's still blowing probably 20 to 25 knots today but we're in somewhat of a protected bay and we're meeting up for the girls last night with a couple of our mates. Angelo and Maddy and a few other people we haven't met yet. Yeah we're going to have a catch up this afternoon because Nicky and Kelly are unfortunately out. They're only out for a few days, got to get back. Going to take in a little bit of lunch, got some coconuts, got some rum, got a machete. We might go check out some waterfalls this afternoon. We made some friends who live on an island we really haven't checked out yet. It's the girls last day and we've just had so much rain the last couple of days so the water holes are all filled up. So fortunately a couple of the locals that live here brought us down to this swimming hole so we can have a few beers and have a fresh water spritz. So bloody good. It was diesel. It was? Oh okay. Yeah sweet. Okay so it's diesel. We got diesel not petrol. Thank god for that. What's for dinner Angelo? Beer. Did you catch it? Yep. On this weekend. On this island? Yeah on the back of Prince of Wales. Well done mate. Paddock to plate. It's a real deal. This one came up and said good day and take him home. No fish today but we got veggies just slow cooking here in the cast iron pot. There we go boom mixed bag of veggies. Thank you very much. We got a garlic olive oil rice and the bonfire is now turning into coals. Looks horrible but geez it tastes good. Anchored up. Heap of rain last couple of days so hopefully we can find a bit of a waterfall coming down this mountain ridge here. Oh there's so much water. How big is that? Yeah there's like a series of pools as it goes all the way up and you get a view of the ocean. We've hiked up only a few minutes it just keeps going up and up and up up the ridge. What a great finish the last few days. Nikki and Kelly are cruising back on the airport back to Australia today and they've got to be at the airport getting ready for their flight in 30 minutes and we are at the top of an infinity pool waterfall where we just had a swim so the girls could have a fresh water shower. Now we need to quickly put the footwork on jump in the boat and hopefully we have enough fuel to get to the airport. Nothing like cutting it fine last minute down a couple of wet rocks. You feel safe Cal? Made it just in time two minutes to spare. Hopefully I've got enough fuel to get back over to TI. I'm so glad we didn't run out of fuel. I'm so glad everyone's safe. I'm so glad we didn't get caught in a storm. I'm grateful for many a things for many a things. Kelly and Nikki if you see this thank you for an incredible few days. I had such a bloody good time. Loved every second. The adversity, the rainstorms, the penguin huddles, the good tucker, the sunshine, the stargazing, the wine on the beach, all the good ----. Thank you. Now it's time to work out how to get back home. I always knew logistically getting the boat back home was going to be an absolute nightmare because we left at such a short notice for such a big bloody trip but now it's all working out and I'm getting the boat on the trailer. Jack the boat is safe mate. The rifle virtually safe. One thing he said to me, one thing Jack said to me before he got on the plane and left here from Horn Island was man just don't sink the boat. Just please don't sink the boat and we haven't mate. We're just about to get it on the trail. Mate. Beautiful. Especially when it's not raining. When the rain stops. Back here to the island where I'm camping tonight and then flying out tomorrow afternoon after a date with quarantine in the morning. But the boat is safely on the trailer. It's all strapped down, all tied in and that over the next week is going to travel back down to where I live down the east coast of Australia and then I'm going to fly out on the afternoon flight back to the farm. Got to get back to the farm which I'm thoroughly looking forward to to see the animals, see my family and check out on the orchard and the fruit trees and the greenhouse. Pretty buggered. Still need a couple of good sleeps under my belt and a hell of a lot of water and a good stretch. The chassis is probably holding up just as well as the boat so it's hanging in there but needs a fair bit of maintenance and love and attention and all the rest of it. But that's all right. That's all right because it was the trip of a lifetime. Close to a month ago we set out to travel from home, our own backyard to get to the bottom of Papua New Guinea. The most northern tip of Australia through the Torres Strait Islands. And we're here. We camped there behind us in a little dilapidated but soon to be refurbished campsite on the edge of the beach surrounded by granite boulders, mangroves and with a view on the other side of Jack there where he swam out to get the boat up New Guinea about four miles away. Mainland New Guinea. Final frontier. I've got to get off the bottom, get off the bottom. That's insane. That's just a monster. That is such a spectacular place. Can't make a plan. Got to set virtually zero expectations. Take it all as it comes. Soak it all up. So grateful to be here, to be able to do this. That's the absolute most fun. Look at that. Another perfect morning. Hot. Not much sleep. Not much sleep. Lots of squalls. Pretty alarming. The wet season is properly here and the boat is half full of water. So we headed north through one of the final frontiers of wilderness areas on the planet. The Torres Strait Islands up to the bottom of Papua New Guinea. And this trip was every bit what we wanted to get out of it. Both challenging, rewarding, enriching and we'll forever be grateful for it. Seriously? Oh my gosh. Seriously? Yeah, this one. That is yours. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. There it is. See you mate. See you at the end of the week. Hang in there. Oh, it's a huge part of me that wishes I was riding, riding the rifle bird back down the east coast to home. But it's just the weather's proper turn day. It's really rough. There's a category two cyclone that's formed in the middle of North Queensland. So probably a safe bet that we're flying today. Hopefully it's safe to fly. I'm heading to the airport now. I've got my one clean shirt on. One clean shirt on that that Nicky brought me up and back home to the farm this afternoon. It's all sorts of ugly out there. Well, this is a different kind of beautiful, a violent washing machine kind of beautiful. Just sitting here on the edge of the wharf, having a bit of taco before the bus comes and picks me up to go to the airport. And there's a six meter fiberglass boat that just came in with one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, ten family members and a heap of gear. And they've come from Saibai, which is 80 or 90 nautical miles north of here. And it's probably blowing 20 to 25 knots, which in this ocean, coupled with some tide into that wind can be a pretty scary sea. So what they've just done is like phenomenal. And I said to him, I was like, mate, like, how was the ocean? He's like, ha ha ha. It was beautiful. Like sarcastically. And then he reckons, what choice do I have? The ocean is our highway. What choice do we have? The ocean is our highway, the blue highway. There's the gear, some of, there's all the fuel drums I've used, and that's the family that's just come off. It's insanely impressive. Let's do this. The wet season. Have a go at that. I've been driving for almost an hour and a half and it's been like this, literally the whole bloody way. Gotta love the wet season. The sky's clearing up a little bit. You've made it this far and you've been tuning into the whole series. Thanks for coming on the journey. Thank you everyone who was a part, however great or little, of the journey. And thank you everyone, especially from the Torres Strait Islands. Lucky enough to call that beautiful part of the world home. Thank you. Look forward to getting there again soon. The chickens have grown up so big. Where's the buffalo? There's the cows. There's the buffs. All right, time to get to work.