Day 32: Fraser Island

We left Bundaberg and headed south - our destination today is Fraser Island and we are both very excited and looking forward to it. We have wanted to get to Fraser Island for a long time. We stopped for smoko in Maryborough, and headed towards Rainbow Beach. It sounds like such a pretty place. We decided to get onto the island at Inskip Point because we have our camper trailer and we are worried about the inland roads and we are more confident that we will be able to get through along the beach road. We got our permits and barge tickets and waited for the barge to come back and get us. Luckily we didn't get bogged getting onto or off the barge! I know Jim loves sand driving, but there has been a tendency for this to end up with being bogged in the sand!

The deckhand on the barge told us to drive around the headland, get out our chairs and have some lunch while we waited for the tide to go out. It sounded like a great idea, and as we drove around the headland we realized that we couldn't actually go any further until the tide went out and there was dry sand for us to drive on.

 We had some lunch and wandered along the beach - it was so beautiful.

We saw a dugong that had been washed up on the beach and died, and then noticed a sleepy dingo nearby. The dingo kept one eye on us as we wandered past, but didn't seem too interested in us. I think we were safe as long as we left his dugong alone!

After about an hour, we decided to brave the receding tide and continue along our way. It was a spectacular drive, as we crossed freshwater creeks, rocks and the wreck of the Maheno - a ship wrecked in 1930s. As the tide slipped away, we were able to zoom along the beach at around 70 km per hour, and soon we were at our campground: Frasers at Cathedral Beach. We set up camp and settled in. It gets dark early here, because we are the eastern side if the island and very low behind a huge sand dune. The camping ground is behind the first row of sand dunes on the eastern side of Fraser Island and it’s a sandy camp. Actually there is salt and sand everywhere and it makes an interesting pattern with the red dust from Cape York, and the soft white local sand.

Lizard update: The gecko was found today, squished between the canvas of the camper.



Problem: There is no mobile phone or Internet access. For 4 whole days!!

Day 31: Bundaberg

We set out to tour the local tourist attractions: we went to the barrel where they make Bundaberg Ginger beer – the tour was good and we got to try all their drinks, and some new ones we hadn't seen before.

We visited the cooperage where they make wooden barrel kegs and the highlight of the day was a visit to the Bundy Rum distillery.

The Rum tour was good – we saw the molasses storage, barrels where they age the rum. At the end of the tour we got to try the rum - two drinks each. Yay. Lucky we didn't go on the 9.30 tour!  Helen tried the Rum Crisp, a new rum and soda pre-mix drink which was very nice, and a chocolate, coffee liquor. There is apparently a game of football on tonight that Queenslanders are very excited about, and we went to Brothers Sports Club for tea. We walked back to the caravan park, and Jim went to watch the end of the footy in the Camp Kitchen and ended up trying to explain Rugby to a family from Belgium.

Lizard update: For those of you who are interested there is still no sign of the lizard. Apparently it is one of those little geckos so it should be sitting on the roof eating bugs, but we have not seen him since the first sighting. Do they make a lizard trap (you know, like a mouse trap, only for lizards)?

Day 30: Bundaberg

Helen was very excited about heading towards Bundaberg. We started the day off by crossing the tropic of Capricorn and stopped for a few photos at the marker.  They say (not sure who 'they' are...) that you can see crocs in the wild above the tropic of Capricorn, so we should be all clear now!

We had smoko at Spinnaker Park, Gladstone. Gladstone was a pretty place, nice river and a huge wharf which seemed to ship coal to the nearby power station.

We stopped for lunch at Bororen, then called into Rosedale for an ice-cream and 20 litres of fuel to be sure we made it to Bundaberg. The caravan park was lovely and we set up camp, then headed out to explore the town. There are so many beautiful birds, this is one of the noisy ones that woke us up this morning.

It seems there is a lizard in the camper. Jim reckons he saw it run in, I'm not sure why he didn't catch it then, but full bedding inspections are now required before I will get into bed, until the lizard is found. I don't know how big it is. Jim says it's only small, but how small is small enough when we are talking about a lizard in your bed?

Day 29: Rockhampton

We stopped in Mackay for smoko and lunch at Clairview, which was a small rest area along the coast. It was a great little spot and the local WAGS used a small room near the toilets to sell cups of tea and coffee home made cakes and arts and crafts. ‘What does WAGS stand for?’ Jim asks. The ladies laughed – it was obviously a question they had heard many times and they all had a different answer: Women's action group, women and gentlemen’s society, women against group sex! We had a chat and a laugh with the ladies, and bought a couple of slices of carrot cake, coconut ice, and a chocolate slice.

We stayed at a caravan park in Rockhampton and discovered they had a restaurant. Jim checked it out and it looked like a great option for dinner because it was a stonegrill restaurant, and that is Helen’s favourite.
Helen had ‘Stone of the Moment’, which included Balmain Bug, Tasmania Salmon, prawns and scallops, to cook on a stone grill. Jim ordered crocodile to cook on the stonegrill. It was delicious, although the lady owner was busy feeding 100 teenage softball players, and was a bit cranky.

Day 28: Airlie Beach

Helen is cranky. She had 31 sandfly bites on one leg and 22 on the other leg. Of all of the creatures that I could have been bitten by (crocodile, taipan, brown snake, black snake, encephalitis or dengue fever infected mosquito), this was probably a good option, but the sandfly bites are unbearably itchy.

It was cold and raining and we were both miserable (well Jim was only miserable because Helen was very cranky). We drove out to Shute Harbour and looked at the yachts and islands in the Whitsunday Passage. The rain finally stopped and we looked for a geocache, and then wandered around the shops in Airlie Beach. We had fish and chips for lunch from the Fancy Fish Shop - actually, it wasn't that fancy, then wandered around the lagoon, and the marina and the day turned out to be sunny. But we didn't really love Airlie Beach and ended up happy to leave.

Day 27: Airlie Beach

We packed up camp at Paronella Park in the rain and continued our journey south. We gave our Cape York map to a young bloke called Darcy, from Phillip Island and exchanged stories about Fraser Island and Cape York. It's funny the impressions you form about a place from reading the tourist books. Darcy though you needed to navigate via GPS to find the right track to Cape York, and he set us straight about Fraser Island.

We drove to Mission Beach and saw the devastation of cyclone Yasi. Houses either had a shiny new roof, a blue tarp on the roof or no roof at all. It seemed that few houses escaped the cyclone. We could see trees with new growth that had clearly lost all of their leaves, and several big gum trees and palm trees were broken off at the top.   We saw a cassowary along the roadside near Mission Beach. They are quite big, similar to an emu, however they have brightly coloured feathers and a blue head.

Smoko was at Ingham, and we had a quick lunch in Townsville. We stopped at the big snake in Ayr, and Queensland has got a lot of 'big' things.  The strangest of all 'big' things was the 'Big Mango'. 

We had a quick look at Bowen. Bowen was an interesting place, we stopped at Queens Beach, which is a beautiful beach (but you can’t swim because of crocs, sharks and stingers), then drove around to the wharf where the film Australia was made.

We ended up in Airlie Beach and set up camp for a couple of nights. Helen got sandfly bites as soon as she got out of the car. Sandflies are mean. You can't see them, and you are bitten before you even know what has happened. And once you are bitten, they start to itch. It's not too bad at first, but on the second day the itching is almost unbearable.

Day 26: Paronella Park (near Innisfail)

It seems that each day that we head further south it gets colder and the weather is more unpleasant. Today is another grey day, with drizzly rain, but it is warm at around 25 degrees. And a bit sticky.  We headed for Paronella Park, which is a park created by José Paronella in the 1930s.  It is an awesome and beautiful park, which we toured by day and night, and we camped in their caravan park.

  This is Kauri Avenue, a pathway of massive Kauri trees.

The refreshment rooms.

The day tour was lovely and we enjoyed hearing about José Paronella’s dream to create a Spanish castle in Queensland. He was such an inspiring man, and developed a hydro electric system long before electricity came to the area, and I am sure that it was a park that was enjoyed by many people.  The night tour was different, and some areas of the park are illuminated and this creates a spectacular effect. The highlights were the waterfall and the refreshment centre – both beautiful by day, and awesome at night.