Judy & Brian Tour Oz: El Arish Qld

Showing posts with label El Arish Qld. Show all posts

Thursday, August 3, 2023

South Mission Beach Qld August 3, 2023

Woke up to rain. Stayed in bed, seemed the safest thing do. The rain cleared after a while and the sun even started to shine. We went up to Mission Beach proper and had a quiet cup of coffee. While Judy had a browse in the selection of dress shops, I took myself off to the beach for a wander.

With not much else to do we went exploring and found ourselves in Garners Beach Road where we were surprised to see not one, but at least five, Little Kingfishers flitting about on the power lines. Garners Beach itself looks like a nice quite smallish beach and was a bit protected from today's strong onshore winds.

Little Kingfisher, Garners Beach Qld

Looking for lunch, we went back out to El Arish to check out a strange looking cafe we had seen yesterday as we drove up the highway. It's called The Pocket and is basically a big barn. I'm sure that in years past it has been used by the local farmer to sell produce. Anyhow, it's been nicely furnished and is now a decent and slightly quirky cafe. The menu was basic, but the ham and cheese toast with relish was very yum! Well worth a stop if you're up this way.

The Pocket. El Arish Qld

Art is in the eye of the artist, they say. El Arish Qld

With the sun still winning the battle with the ominous grey clouds, I elected to take my daily 5K walk along the beach. Straight into the still very-present wind. Saw some wading birds, which might be Pied Oyster Catchers doing their thing, ie catching a feed on the beach. I was attracted to the mirror like effect of the water on the very flat sand, but as I neared them, they kept moving away, so my snap was more distant than I would like.

Pied Oyster Catcher, South Mission Beach Qld.

Final snap of the day was off Dunk Island, still abandoned and unloved following successive cyclones. Apparently you can now book one of eight designated camping spots, take a water taxi over from Mission Beach and enjoy your bit of island all by yourself.

Dunk Island Qld

Wednesday, August 2, 2023

South Mission Beach Qld August 2nd 2023

Lot of really heavy rain overnight, but by 7am, it had stopped and I thought I might risk a beach walk. Well tome more exact, a walk from the end of South Mission Beach, across the headland via the Kennedy track and down onto the beach at Luggers Bay. The start seemed reasonable, the first 200m is a fantastic boardwalk. The track then climbs steeply upon a 'few' steps and down and up and one and on for about 1.2km. Finally at the end the track drops down onto the beach via a large set of stairs. The first time I came here in 2015 there were no steps, they had all been blown away from the effects of the then most recent cyclone.

Looks promising enough. Kennedy track, South Mission Beach Qld

On more recent visits the stairs have been well and truly present and access to the beach and beyond was made exceptionally easy.'

None of which prepared me for todays surprise, the ocean was swirling about the bottom step! I checked the tide and found that high-tide was still an hour away, making any access to the beach impossible for the next few hours.

But, the beach and steps awash with the ocean. Kennedy track, South Mission Beach Qld

The rain had set in so we drove over to Tully, which was living up to its reputation as being the Rainiest place in Australia with an average of a drip over 4 metres of deluge a year.

Tully doesn't lookalike it's changed since 1926, which is when a lot of the shop fronts proudly display as their year of opening. We found the only open cafe and drank excellent coffee and ate excellent carrot cake, So that's changed at least!

Beautiful sodden down town Tully. Tully Qld

As we were out and about we headed a few kilos up the road to El Arish which boasts a great old pub and serves very acceptable meals. I chose the steak sandwich and Judy the fishburger. We sat out on the terrace an watched the rain flood down for an hour or so.

Novel way to pull beers in the Hotel. Tully Qld

El Arish Hotel, Tully Qld

El Arish Hotel. Tully Qld

Finally we had to work our way back to the van park where we found the groundsman busy with his little mini-backhoe busily digging emergency drains in an attempt to stop some of the vans from floating away. Well not quite float away, but at least lower the water level enough so the occupants could get in and out.

Sunday, July 26, 2015

South Mission Beach Qld. July 26, 2015

South Mission Beach Qld. July 26, 2015

If half the state of Queensland can have a holiday because the Tully Show is on, I can have a day off from Blog-writing!

Over the last two days we travelled around a bit. We went up to the Murdering Point Winery just north of Mission Beach, at a place called Silkwood, although you'd be hard pressed to spot the actual township. The wine was 'interesting', but we bought some fortified brew because we thought they needed our help!

Just down the road from Silkwood, on the coast is a town called Kurrimine, which doesn't feature in any of the tourist brochures but is quite pleasant and judging by the number of boats in the water and around the van park, it has some good fishing grounds.

We then found ourselves back out on the Bruce, at a town called El Arish, which is in the brochures. It's claim to brochuredom is that it is a reasonably intact example of the soldier settlement, a scheme introduced after WWI whereby returned soldiers could go into a ballot to be allocated a 600 acre farm and some expenses to help get them started as farmers. The town itself grew up not long after to service the farmers. All we could see that might have been original was the hotel and railway station. Speaking of hotels, we had lunch at this one, and pretty good tucker it was too.

Judy making a break for the hotel. El Arish Qld

Railway Station. El Arish Qld

On our way back into the 'beaches', we were slagging off all the 'Beware of cassowary' and 'Cassowary cross here' saying that it was a joke and the you never see them. Wrong. Right then we came across an adult male (they do the baby minding) and two chicks. I braved the traffic roaring past and the Cassowary who was starting to get a bit agitated, to get this snap:

Cassowary. South Mission Beach Qld

Today was 'monster' market day and we toddled along because it's what you do on a Sunday morning in these places. The usual range of sun-dresses and hand-made necklaces competed for space with less than fresh looking vegetables and dog-eared books. We adjourned to Mission Beach for a coffee reviver.

'Monster' Market. Wongaling Beach Qld

Being the lazy sods we are, we ate lunch at the cafe next door to the van park before going down to the end of the road, where there is a boat ramp and a rather nice looking boardwalk going around the headland. It said 1.3 km to Luggers Bay and so we thought we'd have a go. They forgot to mention the stairs up and down, but it was generally pleasant, passing a pebble beach called Lovers Beach. At the end we couldn't bring ourselves to climb down the steep looking stairs, more ladder-like than staircase, to the actual beach of the Luggers bay.