KESWICK ISLAND - CHAPTER 1 - BEWARD DUTCH MEN IN BIG HATS

Introduction
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8 – Shark Bait

KESWICK ISLAND
CHAPTER 1
BEWARE DUTCH MEN IN BIG HATS

I am 10 years old and we’ve been on the road for days now, our destination?

Keswick Island an uninhabited island located in the Whitsundays, 32 kilometres off Mackay on the Queensland coast of Australia…

We’ve just arrived in Mackay, purchased all our food supplies for 2 weeks and the weather is balmy, just what you’d expect in this tropical climate.

About midday we head over to the marina, to meet ‘our ride’ and say g’day to the captain of the boat we’d hired to take us to the hut on Keswick

We got the old ‘shuffle you over there into a corner, coz no-one seems to know what you’re doing here anyway’ kind of treatment…...a somewhat disconcerting welcome after all that travel to get here and not quite the reception we’d expected….

Then from deep within the steamy garage where grimy workmen were hangin’ about working on a large fibreglass speedboat with the words BIG HAT emblazoned thereon, a very large and stressed Dutchman with a thick accent, wearing an even more unusual hat, emerged from the dark hanger to greet us! This was when I started to get butterflies in my tummy 

We waited hours and hours on the dock, seemed there was trouble with the boat and our welcoming committee was a bit oblivious to the fact that we were all ready to go and that we’d been scheduled to leave around midday for the long trip over…..as of course, you don’t want to be belting through the water in the dark…..? and Keswick was a long way away by boat.

By the time the Dutch Man seemed satisfied the boat was ok and seaworthy, we were getting a bit jittery, it was late in the afternoon……and you could feel the tension and the fear growing (in our little family unit)….we thought for sure, we’d have to spend one more night in the motel, and head off for Keswick the next day..

But no, it was decided for us by the ‘Flying Dutchman’ that we were heading out on the boat right now, into the deep blue sea NOW, just on dusk, just as the sun began to sink, so did our hearts….panic!!!!!

Stay tuned……for tomorrow’s episode 2……
With the intrepid travellers……

Flight of Fancy

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island, boat, big, holiday, travel, children, child, hat, story, stories, traveller, travels, taylor, keswick, uninhabited and karin