The flight out to Darnley is not for the weak.  Especially if you’re flying from Houston, Texas like us.  It takes 5 planes, 1 overnight layover, and 7 stops in total.  You hop from city to town to island on planes that get smaller and smaller and smaller. You get to look out the window and watch as you pass over little banks of sand, barely popping out of the ocean as the tide falls.  Until, finally, you see a beautiful green island surrounded by every shade of turquoise blue and the smallest runway that you’ve ever seen. Well, technically it’s the second smallest runway in the Torres Strait but that’s beside the point.

 

Darnley Island, or Erub in its native language, is located between Papua New Guinea and Queensland, Australia, in an area that I had never heard of called the Torres Strait.   The island itself has a population of about 375 people and has a tavern, a grocery store, an art center, health center, and a school.  Like most of the islands in the Torres Strait, you have to get permission from the native council to visit.  Luckily, Ashley’s mom Donetta, with her husband Ralph and dog Pickles, have been living on the island where Donetta works as a teacher so we were granted permission to visit them.

 

 

 

 

After spending the past few grueling months prior to our trip selling furniture, packing, and moving, the 2 weeks on Darnley was exactly what we needed.  Ralph and Donetta took us out on their boat and Donetta, Ashley, and I went snorkeling around the island.  We spent some time driving around the island on a spare ATV and fishing with hand reels on the jetty with some of the local kids, throwing in a hook to catch your bait and then throwing the bait out to catch bigger fish.  The kids make it look really easy!  It’s totally not.  Ashley eventually made some great catches but I was lucky enough just to catch my own bait fish once or twice.  I even got some sympathy bait given to me a couple times!  We also got to spend time up at the school, helping out with the classes and getting to know the kids (which was one of my favorite parts!).

 

 

It was a very relaxing, easy going vacation spent on island time and we had a blast getting to see family (thanks Donetta and Ralph!).

 

 

 

 

When our almost two weeks in Darnley were up, we were able to hitch a ride on a charter plane and spend a few nights on Thursday Island before heading back to mainland Australia.  This island has a few more places to see and go, including an amazing cultural center that houses artwork and headdresses from all over the Torres Strait, a World War II defense facility, and a few bars and restaurants.  Donetta surprised us with an awesome tour of the Kazu pearl farm on Friday Island, that included the best 7 course sushi lunch, a demonstration on seeding pearls, and an amazing view of the water.  The island has this pizza place called Island Rooster that has an amazing crayfish pizza and Ashley even caught a local Rugby game.  We stayed at Jumula Dubbins Hostel, a place with great facilities very close to a lot of bars and restaurants in town.  Our last night, we walked up Milman Hill with a bottle of wine and some snacks to enjoy the beautiful sunset.

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, the next morning we had to leave to catch our flight from Horn Island (a 10 minute ferry ride away) and neither of us had set an alarm (we also had a late night out with some new friends…) so we had to rush to our ferry to make it on time.  When we realized the ferry had already left, I decided to ask a family getting on their boat if they were headed to Horn and even though they weren’t going in that direction, they still helped us out and got us there as fast as they could.  The lady on the boat, Jessica, even picked up my cell phone and mailed it to me when I realized I’d left it in the hostel!  Thank you, Jessica!

 

It was a beautiful time in the Torres Strait and we can’t wait to see Ralph and Donetta again soon!

xoxox Ornella

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