Tuesday 1st April, we reluctantly left Karen’s to
begin our travels again. We are setting
out almost exactly where we left off twelve months ago.
First stop is Bowen where we book for two nights. We had hoped for a site right on the beach,
but they were denutting the coconuts and that area was closed. However, we were more than happy with our
site directly behind the cabins. It was
very shaded and nicely secluded with lots of garden between the sites.
We enjoyed visiting the lovely bays and
beaches of Bowen, and some places were very inviting. However, despite locals assurances that there
weren’t any stingers around, we weren’t game enough to take the chance. Jim tried fishing at a few of the places
without any luck. There were some lovely views of the Whitsunday Islands too.
Bowen has some World War 2 history as it was the base for the Catalina flying boats. They have a very well done memorial to them.
Interestingly, one of the other campers, who had actually
been there for five months, came over to talk to us after spotting the Vic
number plates. She turned out to be a
Tallangatta girl, the sister of Jenny Crisp from the newsagents.
Wednesday night I was going through my Wikicamps app looking
for another possibility between us and Alva Beach, when I spotted a place
called Groper Creek. So we headed there
Thursday morning. What a great find this
was, a real little secret. It is just
out of Home Hill, near Ayr, and is owned by the Home Hill Fishing Club. It must be hugely popular with the
southerners in winter, but as we were ahead of the season, we got a choice
shady spot right on the water. We very
soon added another two days on to our original booking of two.
And finally some fish. Jim caught quite a few whiting, some throw
backs, bream and a nice size shark. One
morning he was making coffees and asked me to watch the rods. He didn’t hear me yell for him over the
coffee machine, so I ended up bringing in a good sized flathead, even if it was
foul hooked.
From here we travelled to the other side of the Burdekin
river outlet, Alva Beach. This is
another fishing mecca, but Jim soon decided it wasn’t his type of fishing. Without a boat he needed to wade out into the
water, which he didn’t find all that pleasant.
Although a very nice caravan park, with perhaps the friendliest group of
people we had encountered, we decided it was time to move. I had been monitoring the weather during the
week, with the threat of a cyclone imminent.
Although not due for a number of days, it was already impacting on
Townsville with rain and wind, so we decided to skip our original idea of a
couple of days there and a visit to Magnetic Island, and head inland instead.
No comments:
Post a Comment