Bowen Qld Sunday 21 August 2022

Bowen Qld Sunday 21 August 2022 435km

Longish trip today, but each year the Bruce gets a bit more done to it and the drive gets a bit easier. As mentioned on the way up, the section through Townsville is pretty awful despite being a new superhighway, basically top speed 80kmh, lots and lots of traffic, and it lasts for 40km. We had stopped for coffee at Ingham, where as luck would have it, a big long parking spot was available right outside Maccas.

We took a break at Ayr and found a lovely park one street back from the highway. We had sandwiches and cold drinks for lunch and a bit of a rest before heading out on the last leg to Bowen.

The wind had sprung up by now and was pushing me about a bit, which apart from making the drive a lot more demanding, it was using up fuel at an alarming rate. We were down to the 80km warning sign and 60km to go when out of the blue, in the middle of nowhere, a service station popped up. Naturally we pulled in and topped up. Surprise! Cheapest fuel yet since leaving home.

Made it into Bowen, where we are pretty much right on the water, but that wind hasn’t dropped yet. Lets hope it doesn’t persist for the next five days (it did as it turned out, but what can you do?).

The thing about Bowen is that the van park is small and quiet and ‘nice’. The other thing is that apart from the view of the lighthouse from Flagstaff Hill and a bit of  wander along various sandy areas referred to as ‘beaches’, there is not much else here really. Sure it was the base for the Catalina Flying Boats during WWII and there is the remains of the concrete ‘apron’ of the base and a nice memorial, but that’s it I'm afraid. 

The Lighthouse. Bowen Qld

Catalina Flying Boat. Bowen Qld

The highlight for some would appear to be a bi-weekly visit to the ‘K-hub’ a K-mart and an IGA next to each other. (True, would I make this up?) Still, it suits us for a place to stop and relax next to pool or drink coffee or wander around. 

Coral Cove. Bowen Qld

Queens beach, which is out the front of our place but is totally unusable due no doubt to various past cyclones, but I took a walk around the houses and up the next bit and its quite a bit better. Horseshoe bay is the best beach but the wind is howling and the water isn’t that warm and the ocean looks pretty rough. 

Queens Beach. Bowen Qld

We amused ourselves one day by taking a visit to Airlie Beach where they once had the BEST van park in Australia, and to which we haven’t been for a few years. They owners totally st***ed it up by destroying the pool by putting in a monster waterslide park where the grass and loungers used to be and sticking in 10,000 cabins and pushing all the vans out the back, but that’s another story.

We drove past and on into Airlie Beach proper. At first you think, “Oh wow, they have really done the place up”, but after a while you realise that apart from the original daggy hotel which really has been done up, there isn’t that much that has changed. There is one bit of it, near the magnificent pool area that has started to taken on a Noosa Hastings Street look, but half a street away, its the same old Airlie. We had a really nice lunch in some random bar & cafe and took our leave.

Back at Bowen, the highlight of the week is a Classic Car Show at the Front Beach, near the Yacht Club. I have no idea what or how this happened but apart from a few random old cars there was a swarm of Austin Healys. Lovely! 

Austin Healey 100/4. Bowen Qld

Proper dashboard. Healey100/4. Bowen Qld

We ended our time here with takeaway coffee from McD’s and watching the sun start to set over Coral Bay.

Coffee and Sunset. Coral Cove. Bowen Qld