Rockhampton, Qld

Long day in the saddle, 470km from Airlie beach to Rockhampton, mostly because there’s not much in between. After wending our way down and past the outskirts of Mackay, avoiding the 3 car pile up, we stopped on the side of the road in Koumala for a cup of tea. Much later, we strayed into Marlborough looking for the van park, found the pub instead and had a counter lunch. Found the van park on the way out chose to keep driving, only 102km more to Rocky.

Van park in Rocky is just down the road from my Alma Mater, now called Central Queensland University, as opposed to University of Central Queensland (they must have nought to do, probably the result of a University Study leading to a PhD in Signology, I'd love to read the thesis, although its probably not called that) or the original title of Capricornia Institute of Technology. Now I think by now that I can claim to have been in a few van parks, but this one takes the cake. The driveway up between the cabins and vans must be all of 3m wide, the sites themselves are wide enough, except my van tracks are all of 400mm from next door’s car tracks, not to mention the odd tree. When will they understand that people who have been careening down the highway for 6 hours just struggle to cope with these stupid van sites? Anyhow, after scraping the next door blokes’ car’s mirror and growling at Judith, we somehow managed to get the thing sort of where it was supposed to be. Too bad, I unhitched and we went for a well-deserved coffee and completely unwholesome cake.

Airlie Beach 3

Apart from doing some exploring in the area between Airlie Beach and Proserpine, finding out some of the locals hidden secrets, we have been on two more ‘cruises’.

The first was a sunset cruise on board Illusions. Any illusions we might have had about a nice comfortable relaxing cruise watching the sun set slowly in the west dissipated from the moment we were picked up. The little bus was hot and stuffy in the back and had the oddest smell – like paint or turps, and you couldn’t open any window and the air-con didn’t work. Once on board, even though it was crowded we found a comfortable enough possie and drank the complimentary plastic of champagne and munched away on the crackers and things. No mention was made of the sunset, which plopped down of its own accord behind us as we steamed out toward the headland. For whatever reason, they just kept going, for more than an hour in the same direction, only turning back after dark to retrace or steps. Now I don’t mind a boat ride, but this just seemed excessive and pointless and were glad to get back.

The next day, at 7am we were ready for our Whitehaven Beach and Snorkelling Adventure. The boat was a single hull dive boat, which means it was crowded, something like 23 ‘guests’ and 4 crew. Dive boats are working boats and are inevitably shabby and border on being uncomfortable. We headed straight for Whitehaven, which is an hour and a half run in even the fasted boat. Eventually after the prescribed time, crashing through the swell and heavy chop we made it to Whitehaven. No we didn’t. We moored way to the west of the beach proper, past the headland upon which there is now a lookout. The skipper insisted that we had never been to the beach proper as no commercial boats were allowed to go there as it would spoil the view from the lookout! Extra-bloody-ordinary. Judy and I exchanged a knowing look as we both knew damn well that FantaSea had moored right at the beach, along with everyone else, back in the 1990s, and that Ragamuffin would have except for the howling gale blowing on that particular day.  It’s not just that he had a different opinion; it was the brusque and quite rude way in which he imparted this knowledge to us that really got up my nose. Oh, well, let’s go snorkelling.

Ah, no. Let’s go for a walk up the hill, which isn’t ‘an easy walk’ at all but a fair climb up a decent sort of hill. Mind you, the view from the lookout is spectacular, looking up the estuary part of Whitehaven, and is where all the publicity shots come from. Here we were informed that we were to proceed back down the hill and across to the beach proper (well, no, the currently uncovered sand flats) and that we would an hour and a half to ourselves! Yippee you say, except that we had been specifically told not to bother bringing towels or sunblock and stuff. Whitehaven Beach is a bit tricky. Being made of 98% pure silica, the sand stays cold because it reflects the sun straight back up, meaning you’re going to get burnt on your undersides real quick.

Going back down the ‘easy climb’ one poor lady fainted and fell over, which threw their well oiled tour into a bit of a spin. Fortunately, Judy was able to get her comfortable while the crew called for help on the two-way, and in time she recovered well enough to finish the walk back down. (and later to go snorkelling). Out on the beach we had a wander, stuck our toes in the ocean and then retired to the shade of a Casuarina to await our return.

On the little beach where we were moored there was some of that sedimentary conglomerate rock like we had seen up in Karumba. This large piece had obviously been on the ocean floor at some stage and was covered in bits of embedded coral and rocks. It even had impressions like you see with fossils, where embedded coral had come away. Pretty interesting. At least something to look at while we whiled away the time waiting to be ferried back to the boat.

Once back on board lunch was available and we tucked in while thr crew up-anchored and set a full on cracking pace across the ocean to who knew where.

The destination turned out to be Luncheon bay on Hook Island and the divers dove and us snorkelers snorked our silly heads off. The water was a fantastic dark blue, the visability great, the coral really good and the fish plentiful, colourful and pretty friendly, swimming right up with and around us; you could easily touch them. The snorkelling saved the whole day for us and later than normal, we headed back to port. The skipper however, had a feeling about the whales, and true enough, there they were, frolicking off our starboard bow. This was a bonus, but when they breached right near the boat it was just amazing and capped the day off. Unfortunately, it’s such and unpredictable event in such a big ocean, getting a snap of the actual whale rather than a splash, is almost impossible on a random basis.

Whitehaven Beach. Whitsunday Island, Qld

A Teenager is born

Ah gee golly gosh. 

Who would have thought that this...

 ...would turn into this...

 

 In just 13 short years!!!!!

Happy Birthday Andrew

Love from Nanny & Poppy

Airlie Beach, Qld

Airlie Beach 2

Derwent Hunter Cruise

Today we went out at the crack of dawn on the 22m gaff rigged schooner, Derwent Hunter. Our luck was in, the wind, which had stayed away for the Hamilton Island race week, was up and blowing strongly. Up went the Fore, up went the Main, the Head and the Stay sails. For an old girl, this old tub cuts a pretty fine swath through the briny main!

We anchored at Black Island and went snorkling; sadly the water at 20C was too cold for my liking even with a 2mm wet suit on. Talking of wetsuits, and snorkling in general, these people need to do themselves and their clients a favour and dump the whole rotten, worn out, perished lot and get some new gear.

Anyhow the snorkling was good, not great, well not up to the outer reef, and in my opinion, not as good as the Low Isles. A second site, Caves Cay, was better, with more colourful coral on its small bommies and some good looking friendly fish.

The crew were great, the boat is a good old timber craft, the food and refreshments were good, and apart from the rubbish gear, we had a really good day out on the water.

Back at the docks, we came across the old girl, Maxi Ragamuffin, on which Judy, I , Amy and Lauren had an equally fabulous day way back in about 1996. It’s for sale, only $395k, complete with licences to tour onto the reefs and three sheds of spares. It seems that a few years ago, they managed to leave a snorkler out on the reef and subsequent legal actions sent the company to the bottom of the harbour. Been tied up and hanging around ever since.

Airlie Beach, Qld

*** Happy Birthday Paul ***

Who's a cutie then?

Made our way down to Airlie Beach, negotiating the non-stop road-work from Townsville to Ayr – they may even be duplicating the Bruce in places, one can only hope so. We thought we’d go into Bowen and find a nice place by the water for lunch, all we found were empty streets as it was after 12 noon on a Saturday. Finally we found the bakery and had our choice of 1 pie and cake, but hurry, they closed at 1pm, even while other lost vans were prowling around looking for a feed that didn’t involve large yellow ‘M’s.

Our van park is actually at Cannonvale, about 2km from Airlie Beach itself and is excellent by van park standards. It even has a … heated … pool, which needless to say was full of people swimming and sunbaking and generally having a good time. Can you imagine that, a van park providing amenities that you can actually use, what will they think of next? We grabbed a few brochures on day trips and now can’t decide which boat to go out on. No sign of the old Ragamuffin unfortunately.

We had to go the huge shopping centre right around the corner and stock up on food, butthen couldn’t resist t, we just had to go and have a look at Airlie Beach proper keepingin mind it must be nearly 20 years since we were here last.

Wow! What a change, the old place is barely recognisable. For a start, the swampy mud flats opposite the place we stayed in has been replaced by a fabulous marina and big houses out on a point I can’t remember being there. They have reclaimed more land and put in a big lake / swimming pool, flash looking shops everywhere and of course apartments right up the hillside.

Sadly, the old pub, where they used to have cane toad races, has also been replaced by a hig rise.

Townsville Too

I godda cold. Rats. Last day on Magnetic Island a bit of a blur. I did manage to have a swim at Rocky Bat which was lovely. Then before you know it, you’re back on the boat and back in Townsville.

We went to the Maritime Museum, but nearly didn’t make it past the front door. The man in charge was obnoxious, gave us a hard time because we asked for the seniors discount. He then went on to whinge about all us seniors coming there and getting a $1 (yes all this for one dollar) off the entry price, even opened the ledger and started counting us! All we could do not to mention that if ‘we’ all stopped coming he’d be out of a job, because 90% of the entries were us old farts. He was the genuine PITA. I later made the mistake of asking when they were going to get the Townsville moved down the river to give their collection some real attraction. Boy oh boy, he went of like a Roman candle citing the $26000 a year for insurance and the kids would put graffiti all over it and of yes the insurance and how all the visitors were old and would trip over the hatchways and to quote our PM Pretender “does he ever shut up?”

The collection was pretty bland really, lots of words but a bit short on your actual museum type of artefacts. At one stage I heard the gatekeeper giving a couple a hard time about whether they had learnt anything or not as they were trying to escape. We fooled him, I hung back until another pair of victims trying to get in gained his attention, and then we made a break for it!

The next day we took a drive up to the lookout at Mt Stuart, which is directly behind Townsville. Far out, it’s a 10.5km steep windy one lane climb from the Charters Towers road up to the top. Sheer drop on both sides and you wind your way up the ridge line. Interestingly, on one side every 2m there is a sign warning the would be trespasser (how? It’s straight down) of the dangers of Laser targeting and Live Bombs. Seems they occasionally use the valley to practice playing armies with real guns and other toys. Might have something to do with the Lavarack Barracks being right here next to our van park, which is right in front of the mountain.

Took the long way home, via a tiny and pleasant town called Giru whose claim to fame is the cane mill. We thought we’d do the right thing and patronise the one café / post office and went in to order lunch. Little did we know that minutes later the mill staff would all appear for their lunch, so it wasn’t struggling at all, just looked it. Mind you, the one lady cooking and serving had to keep racing through the adjoining door to attend to Post office business.

On the way back up the coast I decided that we had to visit Cleveden on Cape Cleveland. Took quite an effort to find the turn-off, cunningly marked ‘AIMS’ (Which transpires to be Australian Institute of Marine Science which happened to be up on the cape itself). Even Tom Tom was no help, we found a place called Cungulla, not on the map and gave up on the others. Maps, I have decided, are next to useless for anything that isn’t a big town on a main road.

Back in town we were hell bent on having a swim in the Rock pool on the strand. By the time we got there the wind had picked up and it was less than pleasant. I had a go for 2 minutes, but the water was gross and cold as well, so we elected for wine and Buffalo Wings at the pier restaurant, a fitting way to watch the day turn to night and end our sojourn in Townsville.

Magnetic Island, Qld

Left the van at the van park and booked ourselves into Peppers Blue on Blue resort on Magnetic Island for a few days. We took the car though, travelling over on the FantaSea vehicle barge, a trip of about 40 minutes through perfectly calm waters.

Magnetic Island is big enough to warrant having a vehicle, but small enough to see all of it in a few short hours. We did the whole lot in one go, first Nelly Bay, Picnic Bay, Cockle Bay, West Bay and A something Bay. Then there is a small carpark beyond which rental vehicles are forbidden, and most sensible folk as well. We took a chance and drove down the ribbon of medium to large potholes held together with some smatterings of tar to Florence Bay and then on to Radical Bay. Regaining the main road, and giving a sigh of relief, we travelled a little bit further to Horseshoe Bay, the biggest of the lot and located on the northern end of the island.

To be honest, apart from Picnic Bay, which is rather pleasant, none of the others do a thing for us and certainly hardly worth the drive back to get there again. Those glossy brochures and admen have a lot to answer for. There’s also supposed to be 7 WWII gun emplacements and the likes here, built to protect the harbour, but they are going to take some serious bush walking to get to.

We had some lunch in the tavern before a bit more exploring and then back to the hotel for a swim in the pool. Did I mention pool? This one is a ‘lagoon’ pool, it must be 200m long and wraps around several of the buildings that make up the Peppers complex.

The Peppers complex is one of those apartment complexes that you buy into and either live in or rent out through the hotel. There are something like 5 buildings here and two more to be built someday. There are lots of empty rooms and ‘for sale’ signs. One of the bargains would appear to be a 3 bedroom multi-story unit fronting the marina which sold for $800,000, now going for $399,000. Across the road is the Mercure resort and it too has at least one building yet to be built, it’s just a hole in the ground. It looks as if they started to build during a boom and then discovered they had a glut of units on their hands and they just can’t sell them.

I went down to the local shops to buy a pizza; it’s closed. I ended up down the end of the island at the Picnic Bay Hotel, and if turned its lights off the whole place would be in perfect darkness. I am confused, this is supposed to be the peak of the peak season and the whole place is as dead as the dormitory suburb it really is. Mind you, if you worked in Townsville city, travelling over in the cat every day and living here on the beach front might have its own appeal.

Picnic Bay, Magnetic Island. Qld

Townsville, Qld

Fairly pleasant sort of run, despite the multiple road works and truck drivers, who would run everyone else off the road, down the Bruce Highway to Townsville. The caravan park is in the most peculiar place behind a service station on the corner of two main roads. Let's see how noisy it is tonight. It is a bit higgeldy piggeldy with lots of cabins, but has a nice, warmish pool, so all is forgiven. Went down town to book the car ferry to Magnetic Island and a couple of nights in a hotel - a bit of a splurge. Heading over on the 9am ferry tomorrow..

Drove around to ‘The Strand’ and had a glass of wine in our most favourite restaurant out over the water (we had lunch there 9 years ago!). Had to make the obligatory drive up to the top of ‘The Hill’, weaving in and out between the hoards of health freaks running and walking their way up. It's 2.9kms straight up and there are a lot of red faces, sweaty t-shirts, people standing under the water misters as well as those doing sit ups, crunches and generally showing off, when you reach the top.Took a few snaps and retired to the van park for dinner and a night in.

Self explanatory from top od Castle Hill