Judy & Brian Tour Oz: beach

Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Rollingstone, Qld. July 31st, 2024

Rollingstone, Qld. July 31st, 2024

Today we moved our camp down to Rollingstone, some 360km away. It takes a while to get drive to the other side of Cairns but after that it's a reasonable sort of run down to Innisfail, where we stopped for a coffee, and then to Ingham and through to Rollingstone, which is about 50km north of Townsville.

We had been allocated our old site from last year, but at the last minute they switched us to another, still by the lakeside, but arguably ‘nicer’. It's big and we don't have a neighbour outside, so it's all good. We had a pleasant afternoon sitting in the sun before the wind picked up and the clouds rolled in.

Here's a few snaps of our spot:

Judy taking easy. Rollingstone Qld

When they say Lakeside, this is what they mean. Rollingstone Qld

Our home. Rollingstone Qld

I was up early this morning and went for my usual walk along the beach. I hadn't counted on the high tide, which meant a bit of walking through he mangrove trees to get to the beach proper, but it was quite pleasant and much different to the low-tide vista I had last year.

"Back" beach, Rollingstone Qld

Later in the day, we went back up to the highway to the Frosty Mango for a coffee and cake. There are other places further off the highway, but this is Ok despite the dorky Mango out the front!

Frosty Mango, Rollingstone Qld

As it was still early we sld down to Townsville to go to a proper supermarket and to get fuel, and still back in time for lunch!

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Tathra NSW, Whales, beach, rainbow

We were due to leave here today, but as the weather is still not great anywhere from here to Port Douglas, we decided to extend ourselves for another week. Actually, it's a reflection of this place, its just so relaxed and easy to be in, neither of us could see any point in leaving to go somewhere else.

We took some exercise by walking up to the shops: its a bit of a climb up 10,000 steps (That's how many Judy counted, and would she fib to me?) The steps go through some bushland and we enjoyed looking at the various wildflowers, and some not so wild - positively tame actually, and listening to the million or so Bell Birds and a few thousand whip birds. You can only listen to them, i'll be damned if i can see them. Actually we might have looked straight at one, but it was way up in a tree and no camera...

This afternoon, we walked over to the beach to see what it was like at high tide. You see, it's not like an ordinary beach, well not at the moment at least, because the sand dunes stop abruptly at a 1 - 2 metre sand cliff face and the water is just there, maybe only 5 metres away at low tide. It was great, the waves pounding in and occasionally spilling over the top, or crashing into the next incoming wave in there rush to get back into the ocean. I was busy waiting for this fisherman to fall over as he juggled his time between fiddling with his rod and making phone calls. Sadly that didn't happen, but then Judy got all excited as a few dolphins started to surf the waves and then IT happened.... A damn whale started to breach and frolic about just off the beach. Sadly, all i ended up with was a bunch of 'splash' photos to add to my collection. We could see at least 2 others further out and we followed them around to Chamberlains Lookout (more splash snaps) and then we were rewarded with a perfect Rainbow.