We are surrounded by the ocean on our last full day of the cruise, so we decide to sleep in until 6.30am. It’s a laidback day, filled with food, snoozing, fishing and slide shows. There’s a photo competition among the passengers that is fiercely fought. Among our favourites are some of the amazing reflections we’ve…

We wake on Day 9 of our Reef Prince cruise at mouth of King George River and eat an early breakfast while we wait for high tide so we can cross over the sandbar. Larger cruise boats can’t get over the sandbar and send tenders up the river instead to the famed King George Falls….

The Reef Prince drops anchor in Vansittart Bay at 3am on Day 8 of our cruise and we wake to another glorious sunrise. At 7.45am, the tender takes us across to a shell-scattered beach and we walk over the dunes and a salt flat to the wreckage of an airplane from World War 2, which…

It’s an early start on Day 7 of our cruise aboard the Reef Prince – we’re in the tenders at 6.30am for a tour of the stunningly beautiful Hunter River. Flocks of corellas and brolgas swoop over our heads and we catch a glimpse of a pom-pom tailed short-eared rock wallaby. The air is blissfully…

As day six of our cruise aboard the Reef Prince dawns we watch another gorgeous sunrise over the bow at Careening Bay, then head inside for a hot breakfast of bacon and scrambled eggs. Soon afterwards we’re back in the tenders to explore Prince Regent Nature Reserve. Hammerhead sharks swim past the boat as we…

We wake on day five of our Reef Prince cruise in the Prince Regent River and wander onto the deck to watch the sun rise. It’s such a serene, beautiful time of day, After breakfast, a boatload of passengers go fishing, while another group head off on a scenic tour of Camp Creek. The fishermen…

We wake to the sound of chains rattling on the fourth day of our Reef Prince cruise – a tender is being lowered for a dawn fishing expedition. The sun is rising over the cliffs of Sampson Inlet as we sit on the front deck of the Reef Prince sipping coffee as the sky streaks…