July 2013

Forecast for today is cloudy with showers and a temperature of 14 to 24 degrees. So for they have got it wrong as we have had mainly sun with a few clouds - although still plenty of time for them to be right. The weather radar shows most rain activity to be between Airlie Beach and Townsville, so here's hoping.

A thump on the roof of the caravan this morning turned out to be a Kookaburra perched on our TV antenna.

A Kookaburra perched on our TV antenna

Later in the morning we went for a drive around the local area. A few kms further down Greenhill Road is the settlement of Greenhill comprising a mixture of permanent homes and holiday homes overlooking the nearby beach - no services or facilities however. Most of the permanent residents have 5 to 6 metre runabouts on their front lawns with old tractors to launch the boats off the beach. We also explored Notch Point Road where Australian Prawn Farms have a farming facility and processing factory. Along with the local sugar cane farms they are probably the only employers in the immediate area. We continued back to Ilbilbie on the Bruce Highway for diesel and a paper - the Mackay Mercury is on a par with Hobart's Mercury.

Sugar cane ready for harvest near Ilbilbie

Another view of Mount Funnel

After lunch David headed down to the beach to try his luck with the fishing rod - no luck however. There were only half a dozen fishermen on the beach and no=one seemed to be catching any fish. Salmon, flathead and whiting are regularly caught off the beach while bream are often caught in Knobbler's Creek at the end of the beach. The weather stayed lovely and sunny for a change.

Another heavy downpour last night and today it is heavy overcast with occasional showers - forecast 15 to 23 degrees. At 9:00 am the showers turned into heavy rain - and Di's got the washing machine churning away - not happy Jan! She will have to turn the shower into a drying cabinet - hang the washing in the shower, turn on the blow heater and shut the door.

Given the lousy weather we decided to back-track to Sarina and do some grocery shopping at Woollies and we got a 17 cent per litre discount voucher for our trouble - we will have to save it up for a full tank at Rocky in a couple of days. We also called into the Sarina Information Centre for maps and local info - however not too much to do around Sarina. We picked up a brochure for the Cape Palmerston National Park which advises that the track into the park is 4WD only and becomes impassable after heavy rain. The alternate access is along the beach but beware of soft sand and large tidal range movements. I think that we will give the park a miss on this occasion.

Back at camp Di settled down with her book, and David installed Photoshop on the laptop and spent the rest of the day exploring its capabilities.

No photos today.

We were woken at about 2:30 am to a very heavy downpour - thankfully it only lasted about half an hour. David dashed outside to move all our chairs under cover before they got too wet. We got up at about 8:00 am and cooked ourselves eggs and bacon on the BabyQ. While the weather is mainly cloudy with the odd patch of sun we are getting an occasional light shower drifting across. After breakfast Di did a bit of washing before we walked about 200 metres through the bush to the beach.

It was low tide with only a few fishermen trying their luck. They were hoping for the best when the tide came in in the early afternoon. We walked the length of the beach to Knobbler's Creek which is quite deep but eventually disappears into the mangroves. We returned to the caravan park along a sandy track that provides 4WD access from the Caravan Park to Knobbler's Creek. After lunch David got out the satellite dish for a bit more choice of TV. We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the sun reading the papers.

Site 56

Our spacious site

The view from our site

View across the caravan park towards Mt Funnel

Nearby beach looking north

Mt Funnel from Knobbler's Creek

Distintive 344 metre Mount Funnel

The wind had dropped slightly in Bowen when we got up this morning. However the forecast was partly cloudy with showers and a temperature of 14 to 23 degrees. After leaving the caravan park at about 9:30 am we stopped in town for the weekend papers from the newsagent then fresh bread from the bakery. We then made a short detour to the showgrounds to use the dump point and while we were there we took the opportunity to flush out both our black water and grey water tanks - much easier with our new pump.

Our trip today from Bowen to Cape Palmerston was 273 kms via Mackay and Sarina, and while the traffic was fairly light we had quite a few showers which slowed us down a bit. We stopped for lunch about half way at the Palm Tree Creek Rest Area, and again at the Caltex servo at Sarina for fuel. Fuel consumption today was a bit ordinary, 23.5 litres per 100 kms, as we had a head wind all the way - still south easterly and about 25 knots offshore.

We arrived at the Cape Palmerston Holiday Park at about 2:30 pm and booked in for 3 nights - the park is all drive-through sites and we were allocated site 56 at the bottom of the park. The park was only opened in September 2011 and has excellent amenities., and is only about 500 metres from the beach. When we checked in we were invited to a jaffle night at the fire pit which is located quite close to our site. While we did not join in with the jaffles we did go down for a few drinks for a happy hour.

A young family travelling south with children, 8 years, 4 years and 2 years old were cooking pop corn in a Dutch oven in the fire pit. The 2 year old decided that David was her Gramps - apparently they both have moustaches, though Gramps apparently has less hair - perhaps not immediately obvious to a 2 year-old.

Back at the van we cooked fillet steaks with onions, potatoes, and tomatoes on the BabyQ. Having listened to the Cats beat the Demons this afternoon, and seen the Tigers fall in against the Suns, we are now watching the Kangaroos and the Lions on TV. TV reception at Cape Palmerston is quite good with all channels except SBS, however Telstra reception leaves a little to be desired. While we have 3G reception for the computer with the external antenna, we have no reception on the mobiles.

No photos today.

Another cloudy windy day in Bowen with a forecast temperature range of 14 to 23 degrees. Today we decided to drive to the historic mining town of Collinsville which was about 85 kms south west of Bowen. Gold was discovered in the area in the 1880s, and coal mines were established in the 1920s. We stopped for lunch at one of the local pubs - crumbed chicken breast with chips and salad. The Coalface Experience Museum appeared closed for renovations so there was little of interest to see in Collinsville.

On the way back to Bowen we drove into the Collinsville Power Station, and feeling enthused about local points of interest we turned left at a sign pointing to the Burdekin Dam. After about 2 kms of gravel road we came to a sign telling us that it was a further 117 kms to the Burdekin Dam - No Way Jose, so we turned around and made our way back to Bowen. At Woollies we filled up with fuel and made a few grocery purchases as we will be on our way to Cape Palmerston tomorrow.

Collinsville Power Station

Red Bougainvillea

Burdekin Dam 117 kms - I think not