Nara Inlet

When we finally left Airlie, it was because the weather was forcing us out. The wind was changing and Airlie would've become untenable as an anchorage. So we headed on over to Nara Inlet. Well that was the plan anyway. Just outside Nara Inlet is a little bay called False Nara (Looks like Nara but it's not). There was a free mooring ball so we picked it up and spent a rolly night there. The next morning with the wind picking up, we headed around the corner into Nara Inlet. 

Fjord-like Nara Inlet with many boats in the distance

As we were pulling in we could see that there was a substantial quantity of boats already anchored and over the course of the night boats continued to pile in as the wind picked up and made all nearby anchorages miserable and possibly dangerous. There were easily 100 boats piled in there. At night when everyone had their mast and boat lights on, it lit up like a city. We heard from some local boaters that this was the most boats they had even seen in Nara Inlet. They themselves had moved in because nearby Cid Harbour, another popular anchorage, was getting a 2 metre swell. Not fun! These same people also had a still on board their boat and made some of the most delicious rum I've ever tasted and we met them when they came over to tell us that they had seen an 8-10 metre shark jump out of the water not far from our boat the previous night. They were my friends for many reasons!

Nara's resident & unfortunately tame cockatoo

Nara Inlet has a trail that leads up to an aboriginal cave with paintings in it. There are tons of other caves in the area and if you keep your eyes open, you might see a window here or there.  Up at the main cave there are informational boards and voice recordings of aboriginal stories.

Aboriginal Cave

One cool tidbit of information that I took from there was that the native Ngaro people referred to themselves as Good-dig-a-goori (spelled phonetically), which means salt-water people and that is what we are. Good-dig-a-goori. There was no reception at Nara unless we went up to the top of the hill and even then it was a rather frustrating connection holding phones and laptops as high as we could above our heads so we embraced the chance to disconnect and relaxed.

Relaxin...