Australia

We left Noumea on Oct 26 2010. We had a good sail the first two days and then the wind went light and we had to motor some and then sail and motor some more. We ended up taking 8 days to get there with the slow sailing and put about 50 hours on the engine. A couple of big rain squalls came through with little wind in them and then another came during night and had winds up to 40 knots for a few minutes and then dropped to 20. Luckily I had the mainsail reefed when I saw it coming on the radar and then took the sail right down as it hit us. There was another weather system coming and we did not want to delay too long getting there, so we motored more than we like.
We got to the bay with Bundanberg about 3am in the morning so slowed down so we did not have to go up the river to the town in the dark. Then the wind came up to about 20 to 25 knots making it hard to go slow so hove to as best we could. As daylight came we motored the mile up river to the Bundanberg port marina and anchored by the Quarantine buoy as we were told to do on the radio when we checked in with VMR Bundy. We were not allowed of the boat until customs and Quarantine visited boat. After a few hours we were told to come to the dock and customs came and did there thing which took an hour and then Quarantine came and took some food stuff of our boat and charged their $300 dollars making Australia the most expensive place to check in the world probably (Visa was $200 dollars each got in Fiji). We will probably stay here for a month and then go up the river to Bundaberg townsite or down to Brisbane. Now it is just great to be finally in Australia.
The boat is in pretty good shape to keep on going if we needed to, just some minor maint items to do. But I want to do a few upgrads and improvements while we are here.

Info:
We followed the red/green channel markers into the Burnett river, no drama in the windy conditions. The first channel markers were missing their red, green paint so we were a bit confused if they were the right markers, again the chart plotter helped. you could not see the triangle or square until you were close. Above article covers customs and calling ahead. The Quaraintine anchorage is right beside the marina, just downstream of it. We anchored at
24 45.551 S 152 23.294 E then moved into marina when told to.
Is shallow, we ran aground at a very low tide going down the fareway between slips, is soft mud. (6ft draft). You bounce around a bit in the marina when it is blowing 20knots outside. Probably not a great spot to leave boat over season. Several people did haul their boats out on the hard for the season and flew home, and that should be fine. Prices seemed good for that and its a separate secured area.