TIME ELAPSED SINCE DEPARTURE : 1 YEAR AND 4 WEEKS
DISTANCE TRAVELLED : 35,170 KMS
TOWNSVILLE
TOWNSVILLE has been a real surprise. What a great town (city?)! It has a stretch of about two kilometres of waterfront area called The Strand that is fabulous with sandy beaches, lush shady parks, tremendous swimming enclosures, palm trees, eateries, bars, picnic areas and tasteful accommodation venues. This strip would do any small city proud. Take note Gold Coast! This North Queensland ‘capital’ is showing you a trick or two regarding tasteful beachfront presentation. And then throw in that jewel called Magnetic Island (or ‘Maggie’ as the locals call it) that’s sits just offshore and a pretty damn good tropical climate with 320 days a year of sunshine and you have yourself an appealing, modern city of 180,000 laid back, suntanned Queenslanders. There is a lot going for Townsville. And in the city centre there is a good mix of historic buildings that are well maintained. The effort to make it all presentable is evident and commendable. The Ross River flows just to the side of the downtown area from where you catch the jet-cat ferry to Magnetic Island and nearby there is a large marina loaded with play-things that would do any marina in Sydney proud. And just across the river from the city is the relatively new and good-looking football stadium that is home to the NRL team the North Queensland Cowboys.
We spent a full day on ‘Maggie’ where we rented a car and visited all the beaches. Some of them required you to park and walk and the best beach for snorkelling – Florence Bay -required a fairly testing 2km walk up some steep paths but at the end of it you arrive at a piece of paradise. A classic curved beach lined with coconut trees, lovely headlands and warm blue waters. Just gorgeous darling, and very few people. (Sooz: The only drawback is that we both came up in lovely welts from sandflies a day or two later.) It’s a bigger island than I thought, it’s very hilly and there are a number of very nice, secluded beaches where you are one of only a handful of frolickers. It’s a great day trip.
(Sooz: I was pleased to re-visit Townsville. It was the very first place I visited in Australia in 1987. My sister Carla and I chose Townsville & Magnetic Island from a Travel Guide. Our travel agent had never been to Australia, and got us a cheap flight… We flew from Chicago to Dallas; Dallas to Tahiti; Tahiti to Auckland; Auckland to Sydney; Sydney to Brisbane and finally, Brisbane to Townsville. Thitry six hours and 6 flights later, we were there. Amazingly, I did manage to remember a few sights including finding the hotel we stayed in all those years ago!)
ACCOMMODATION RATING:
BOWEN
They call it ‘Blowin’ Bowen’. And it lives up to its name. But it’s mostly a warm and humid tropical wind that blows into BOWEN from the Coral Sea and we don’t mind that. More pleasant than those windy places along the bottom of the country (the ‘windy bottom’ 😊) which was a cooler wind off the Southern Ocean. But this tropical wind is just as relentless!
There are a couple of really nice little places on the fringes of town that are extremely appealing – Horseshoe Bay and Murray Bay. Both of these beautiful spots would do any major tourist town proud, but here we are in little ol’ Bowen that flies under the radar and doesn’t get mainstream tourism. Plenty of us Grey Nomads call in here however – there are nine caravan parks to choose from! Having said that, the actual town itself is nothing to get excited about but it’s got everything you need.
Our 6 nights stay here happened to coincide with the annual ‘Don River Dash’, an event that attracts people from interstate with their dirt bike or dune buggy thingy to race up and down the dry Don River bed. So at this time of year, the local Don River is as dry as a bar of soap in Britain. Hasn’t seen water for a few months. It’s a reasonably wide river – probably 100 metres or so across. These guys get out there in their modified cars and bikes and go charging 25 kilometres up the sandy riverbed and 25 km back down and do that three times. So it’s a pretty gruelling 150km race through soft shifting sand and natural holes etc while avoiding tree branches etc. Most of the town gets out and lines the riverbank to watch & support the racers – it’s a major event for the town. But Blowin’ Bowen’s wind tests your mettle a bit coz these racers really stir op the dust and you can find yourself looking into a sandstorm to watch them. Of course, the enthusiasts are so passionate about it, they couldn’t care less if their eyes and nostrils & ears all have a soup-spoon of sand & grit encrusted in them. And once you start talking to the hardened spectators to learn about what’s going on, they are so enthused that it is very difficult to disengage and thus you also end up with sand and dust in your hair and pockets and everywhere else!
ACCOMMODTAION RATING:
QUEENS BEACH TOURIST VILLAGE, BOWEN: 9.5/10 (One of the best)
AIRLIE BEACH
AIRLIE BEACH is only 120km further south from Bowen. The countryside between is a major sugarcane growing area – I have always liked driving through that environment – there is something about it. It’s all green and there is a sweet smell in the air and it seems to promise warm summery days and there is the song about ‘lightning cracking over canefields’ …… I have always liked driving through the north coast of NSW sugar cane areas. It means you are on holidays. Carefree. That warm, fuzzy feeling. That’s what it felt like here. Good stuff. I digress.
I had no pre-conceived ideas about Airlie, other than it’s the gateway to the Whitsunday’s and it’s meant to be rather nice. Looking at a map, you see that its right on the coast with roads winding along the shoreline and thus a view out over the water is promised. WRONG! On driving in for the first time, it was a bit overwhelming. Firstly, there are only occasional water glimpses. There was a lot of traffic -or so it seemed – and passing through the main street it was a bit in-your-face typical holiday location infrastructure – lots of bars, restaurants, nightclubs, shopping etc. Quite tastefully done though. And one very good positive – there are no high-rise buildings. We have learned that Airlie is billed as a bit of a party town and it does target the 30-something dude & dude-ess and back-packer type. Fair enough. That was definitely confirmed when we were standing on one of the beaches, checking it all out. Sooz turned to me and said “have you noticed that we are the oldest people on this beach ……. by a generation”?! She was correct.
Speaking of beaches, the style of beach you would hope would be available at Airlie, doesn’t seem to exist. Yes, there are a handful of beaches, but generally they are very tidal and quite rocky/reefy underfoot. Not really conducive for swimming. So hardly anyone does. But we discovered the most idyllic, most beautiful, most perfect tropical beach you could ever hope to see. About 30 km north of Airlie, along a lonely country road we found Cape Gloucester and tucked off a side road was this little hide-away place called Montes Reef Resort. Montes is a classic, small, low-key unpretentious place with a stunning view on this gorgeous beach. All I can say is check out the photo!
The longer we stayed in Airlie, the more I liked it. At night, the main street is beautifully lit up and is very inviting. All the dot-com age 30 somethings were having a good time in the rather excellent Airlie Beach Hotel and other bars and venues on offer.
On a day that we took a walk along a pathway that follows the coast, we came across a marina that needed closer inspection. I have always liked wandering around such places and the nicely named Coral Sea Marina did not disappoint. Holy Gazillion Batman – I don’t think I have ever seen so many Super Yachts in the one place. Huge billionaire’s play things moored side by side, one after the other. Dozens of them. And aptly, one was registered in Monte Carlo. (Sooz: It should be noted that we visited Airlie Beach at the start of the QLD school holidays. So, we were not seeing it at its best – we witnessed it when it was packed to the gills. Airlie really is quite lovely and I would highly recommend it as a stop for a few nights on your way to the Whitsunday Islands.)
We wanted to take a cruise out to what is described as the best beach in the Whitsundays and perhaps the best in Queensland : Whitehaven beach on Whitsunday Island. But our time in Airlie coincided with very strong winds making any water-based trip rather unpleasant and Whitehaven Beach was directly in the firing line of the wind and thus a sandblasting was not the outcome we would have wanted. Another day, perhaps.
Airlie Beach – it’s lush, green, modern, tasteful, attractive and it’s there for a good time!
ACCOMMODTAION RATING:
NRMA AIRLIE BEACH HOLIDAY PARK 6/10
FINCH HATTON
We detoured away from the coast for a day/night to walk through the FINCH HATTON GORGE which is about 80 km inland from Mackay. A really lovely spot. The gorge has a tropical rainforest along it and a ripping swimming hole at the end of the 1.5 km walk.
The whole area is sugar cane country amongst pretty hills and small towns. Lots of narrow-gauge railway tracks around the place that the cane trains trundle along. We stayed in the local showgrounds that had a beautiful mountainous backdrop and the town just happened to be hosting the annual country music festival. One of the big barns at the showgrounds was the stage and we poked our nose in there for a few minutes, which was about all we needed. Although it was the 14th year of competition and although everyone was doing their best, it was a rather …. errr ….. amateurish show with a very interesting crowd that looked like they had crawled up through the floorboard cracks. The air in the local pub that night was a bit ‘blue’ but like I said, it was a very beautiful countryside.
ACCOMMODTAION RATING:
FINCH HATTON SHOWGROUNDS: 7/10
MACKAY
MACKAY shocked us both. Firstly, its much bigger than we thought – over 100,000 population. Secondly, it’s very spread out. To travel by car from its most northern area to the southern outskirts will take you half an hour on a 2-lane road. And the northern parts of this city – called Mackay’s Northern Beaches – is very, very liveable. Hilly, green, modern, views & beaches. Nice. There is a pub at the northern end of the Northern Beaches. Named after the suburb it’s in, the Eimeo Hotel (pronounced ‘eye-meo’) could be one of Australia’s great pubs – up there with Sydney’s Newport Arms or Melbourne’s Portsea Hotel, with a little work. Here lies a very rustic, rather neglected pub sitting on cliffs 20 or 30 metres above a beach with a beer garden and views up & down the coast and across the water to islands. I have rarely seen a site with so much potential. If any of you have a lazy few million $ or so and want a new lifestyle, then here is an option! (We’ll both be happy to be employees 😊).
The caravan park we stayed in was in this northern part of Mackay and set right on a nice beach – Blacks Beach. Several of the campers were regulars – they come every year at the same time, stay at the same site and are mad fishermen. Catching Mackerel from the beach is the go and these are prized fighting ocean fish. Unfortunately, they were not biting during the 5 days we were there, but we did have some luck on the banks of a local river one afternoon by bringing in a nice Barracuda.
ACCOMMODTAION RATING:
BIG 4 MACKAY, BLACKS BEACH 7.5/1
On our way to the next location, we took a detour to check out the Hay Point Coal Terminal at Dalrymple Bay, one of the world’s largest coal loading ports. Like what we saw in WA with the iron ore ports, here is another massive infrastructure complex for sending coal offshore. There is a viewing area on a hill overlooking the whole shebang and using binoculars, Susan counted 47 ships anchored offshore. There are 2 huge piers – one of them is 3.5 kilometres long and is solely for BHP’s operations. The other pier juts out into the ocean for 1.5 kilometres and services several mining companies. There are mountains of black coal and each mountain has one of those huge, spinning multi-bucket digging monstrosities that scoops up the coal and transfers it to conveyers that takes it out along the piers to the docked ships. Like the iron ore ships, they are huge but you cannot get anywhere near as close to them as you can at Karratha or Port Hedland in WA. But similar to the west, there are hundreds of ship movements per year and hundreds of millions of tonnes of Australia sent offshore. And that is just coal from this port – there is also Newcastle, Gladstone and Wollongong ports from which coal is shipped. And like the West, trains that are two kilometres long ferry the product to the coast from the mines inland, in this case from the Bowen Basin.
So millions and millions and millions of tonnes of Australian ground is shipped to far-away lands from both sides of this country each year, thus there must be some rather large holes in the ground out there in the middle or underground. As our mine tour guide said in Mount Isa, “there is 1600 kilometres of tunnels under Mount Isa that have been dug to get at copper ore”.
CAPE PALMERSTON
CAPE PALMERSTON is a National Park about 90 km south of Mackay and it’s a pretty drive all the way. You are still passing through sugar cane farms. I did not know that there is such an extensive sugar industry in Australia. The only farming we have seen since just north of Bowen (which is 250 km away as the crow flies) has been sugar with a few cattle farms scattered in between. It prompted me to refer to Professor Google who advised that we are the world’s 8th largest sugar cane producer. However, compared to #1 and #2 which alternates between Brazil & India depending on the productivity of the season, we are small. Both of them produce about 20 times more than us! So we are in the world’s top 10 sugar producers. Sweet! (pun intended)😊 You learn something every day.
Sooz: FYI – Whilst in Mackay we went on a Sugar Cane tour at the Sarina Sugar Shed (and yes, GG, we thought of you! 😊) It was certainly interesting to learn about the industry and taste raw cane juice, chew on a bit of sugar cane and then get to try all the jams, sauces and alcohol they produce onsite. Oh and don’t forget the free fairy floss – that’s cotton candy to all the Americans!
There is not a lot at Cape Palmerston so the 3 nights we spent there were enough. Naturally, we explored the area and that included a bit of beach driving which always makes me a tad nervous. I don’t want to get caught in deep soft sand and I don’t carry those recovery boards. Susan says ‘bah humbug – go for it’ which is interesting because if we are on a very rough track with big holes and steep gradients, I am much more comfortable while she is hiding under the dashboard. Anyway, as I said we did a decent beach drive for several kilometres and on another day did the aforementioned rough track thing to a very remote camping spot called NOTCH POINT just to check things out & do a bit of fishing – but not to stay. Unfortunately our time here coincided with 3 days of non-stop high winds.
The Cape Palmerston caravan park was interesting in that it had it’s own, very well maintained lawn bowling green for use by the campers!
ACCOMMODTAION RATING:
CAPE PALMERSTON HOLIDAY PARK 7.5/10
EMU PARK
A MILESTONE REACHED! Our next stop brought up a milestone of sorts. When we began our trip in early August ’22, we headed north as it was winter. Looking for warmer climes – a bit of warm sun and salt water to soothe a man’s aging bones. We made it as far north as the Yeppoon area on the central Queensland coast where we spent the best part of 3 weeks, and loved it. Specifically at EMU PARK. Well, we have re-visited EMU PARK and thus it completes the full circumnavigation of the country. High fives all round! Pop the corks! But we still have about 6 – 7 weeks before we reach our final destination to officially end the trip. We stayed for 5 nights and were happy to even though we were there a year ago. It’s a lovely spot with a pretty little village within walking distance, a good beach and park managers that really care about their customers. They put on curry nights and roast nights and that sort of thing and encourage the campers to meet and gather in the central, sheltered BBQ area. Thats where we met Neville & Robyn and Lou & Jeanette last time and a big cheerio to them. Hope you guys are going well. 😊 We did not do a lot during the second visit here – we were happy to chill and go for swims and take the kayak out for a paddle and read and go for walks etc. Old people’s stuff! Wonderful! Who knew getting old could be so pleasant? (Sooz: Well, one of us has gotten old… 😊)
Speaking of the kayak – I paddled out directly opposite the caravan park where in the distance sits Great Keppel Island. I took my fishing gear with high hopes that were subsequently dashed, but during the hour or so I was out there I saw plenty of marine creatures including three sea snakes (gulp) and probably 10 turtles. Great stuff. We have seen lots of turtles from WA to here. No shortage of those guys. Good to know.
ACCOMMODTAION RATING:
FISHERMANS BEACH HOLIDAY PARK, EMU PARK 8.5/10
AGNES WATER / SEVENTEEN SEVENTY
I was particularly looking forward to the next stop. I had never been to AGNES WATER / SEVENTEEN SEVENTY but had heard some pretty good reports. Things like ‘pretty’, ‘laid back’, ‘good fishing’. Well we didn’t really get a chance to check things out on day one as a couple of hours after our arrival the umpire was scheduled to bounce the ball in the middle of the MCG to start the AFL Grand Final. Susan had pre-booked us a table at the Agnes Waters pub so after checking in we hurriedly set things up and made a beeline to the ‘local’. A ripping good pub too. Too bad the afternoon was ruined by Collingwood winning. To the uninitiated, every sporting competition in the world has a team that supporters in that league love-to-hate. In the NFL, it’s the Dallas Cowboys, in the English Premier League its Man United and in the AFL its Collingwood. Booooo! (In the NRL, its Manly, but that only goes to show that on occasions, people can be terribly misguided. Go Manly! 😊)
The two villages of Agnes Water & Seventeen Seventy are about 5 km apart and are half way between Bundaberg & Gladstone, about 500km north of Brisbane. AGNES WATER has a surf beach which happens to be the most northerly one on the Aust mainland – beaches north of here are protected from swell by the Great Barrier Reef. It’s a nice beach too and we visited it for swims several times. I had been unable to catch a wave since Cable Beach in WA so I loved it!
SEVENTEEN SEVENTY (that is often incorrectly listed as ‘the Town of 1770’ or just ‘1770’. You are not meant to use the numbers) is indeed a pretty place. It was named by Captain Cook and was the year of his second landing on the mainland and first on what is now Queensland. It has the most lovely estuary and Cook apparently at the time had high hopes that it might be a good site for development but wrote that there was a lack of fresh water and had poor quality soil. Indeed, the campground that is set right on the shore of this gorgeous inlet does have a lot of fine dark dirt that easily sticks to your feet and gets stirred up by wind or traffic. Dust would be horrible on a windy day and if there was a few millimetres of rain, the pace would be a bog. Fortunately, we experienced neither.
The kayak saw plenty of time in the water and a few fish were caught both in it and from the shore but no keepers. I hooked onto a ray from the campground beach one day and boy, did it run and put up a fight. I finally got it to shore but it had swallowed the hook so I had to cut the line and let it go. I feel particularly bad when fish etc swallow hooks when they are not keepers and need to be released. I hope it survives.
ACCOMMODTAION RATING:
1770 CAMPGROUND (I know I shouldn’t use the numbers, but that’s how its listed on the
internet!) 6.5/10 (amazing location – run down facilities)
THE BRUCE HIGHWAY This is the Queensland coastal section of Highway #1. The same bit of bitumen that passes through all 6 states and one of the two Territories. In Queensland, the Bruce Highway goes from Cairns to Brisbane, a good 1700 kms. Except that most of it is not good. It’s far from good. A lot of it is woeful. A disgrace. It’s busted, broken with potholes and ridges that grab your tyres and try to steer you in different directions. It’s uneven and at times you bounce along it like you were riding a kangaroo. Pathetic. It is mostly single lane with far too few overtaking lanes and it is really busy with trucks, cars and grey nomads hauling heavy caravans. Dangerous. Really dangerous. And at times, quite scary. Any wonder it holds the title of the worst road in the nation and is classified as ‘unroadworthy’ by the RACQ. A lot of people die on this road and no wonder. I now know that the QLD govt has dedicated a massive $5 billion to upgrade it but IMHO, it should never have gotten to this condition. Soapbox over.
HERVEY BAY
Susan calls it ‘little ol’ HERVEY BAY’. She likes it. (Sooz: I really do!) It’s not that little – there is a population of 62,000, but it has a bit of an old fashioned holiday feel to it. As you drive along The Esplanade which follows the shore for about 3 or 4 km, you pass all sorts of things that bring back fond memories of adolescent holidays – the low rise motels, beachfront caravan parks, plenty of take-away food shops, putt putt golf, a big ferris wheel, beachside food trucks and of course, the huge big pier. It all sounds a bit corny and perhaps dreary, but it works. Hervey Bay does have a nice ‘feel’ to it. Laid back. No rush. You are not here to run a race. Smell the roses.
There is action aplenty on the famous Urungan pier. Its almost 900 metres in length and juts out into both Wide Bay and the channel that separates the mainland from Fraser Island which is now called ‘K’gari’ after it’s indigenous title. It’s going to take me a while to remember that. A stroll along the pier is mandatory and the further along you go the more serious the types of fishermen become. By the time you get to the end, it’s hardcore and the guys here have serious gear that might be seen hanging off the back of a game fishing vessel. Out here you can get Spanish Mackerel, Giant Trevally, Queenfish and Barracouta. To wit, on one of the days we were out there, a monster 165 cm Barracuda had been landed and it was a fearsome sight as it lay on the jetty with its mouth open and fangs that a hyena would be proud of on display. We went for a fish one day but a very strong southerly had kicked in making it rather unpleasant and the fish must have also decided the same and had run for cover. We thought about a visit to Fraser Island but we had been there before and spending $600 to have a tour operator ferry us over there for the day and show us some beaches, rainforest and a dingo or two did not appeal. Too expensive. No wonder we heard complaints from foreign visitors about the costs here. Anyway, that was OK, we were in a good caravan park and were quite happy just to explore the area including a very nice coastal spot called Dundowran where there are acreages, and further along there is the sleepy river-mouth town of Burrum Heads. I can fully understand why the Wide Bay area has been a magnet for retirees.
ACCOMMODTAION RATING:
INGENIA HOLIDAY PARK HERVEY BAY 7.5/10
Unfortunately, we had to get back onto the Bruce Highway to resume the trip south. But that meant heading inland from Hervey Bay to Maryborough to join the highway and we discovered that Maryborough is an absolute jewel. As we passed through, we had to pull over and get out of the car and walk along some of the streets to admire the incredible, traditional Queenslander style houses. Goodness me, they are fantastic and I said to Susan that large parts of the town should be preserved. I adore the Queenslander style houses from yesteryear – I cannot understand why you do not see them in other parts of Australia save for northern NSW. They are gorgeous, character-filled, iconic treasures. And Maryborough seems to have some of the best and most highly concentrated that we have ever seen. Wonderful. If I could, I would LOVE to live in one and perhaps I should investigate transporting one on a truck (or trucks) down to Forster!
Finally, that rotten piece of road that is somehow called a highway and named after a bloke called ‘Bruce’ becomes a proper twin-laned freeway once you get just south of Gympie.
COOLUM BEACH
We are on the way to the Sunshine Coast to a part that I had not visited before – COOLUM BEACH. Despite having previously been to Noosa several times (starting way back in 1980), and Mooloolaba and Caloundra while visiting my father (who lived at Bli Bli) and staying at Dicky Beach early in our Great Rotation, I feel that I really don’t know the Sunshine Coast all that well. It didn’t disappoint. The Sunshine Coast has it all over the Gold Coast, in spades. It’s not as crowded (but still busy!) it’s not as built up, it’s not as commercial, it’s more tasteful and the beaches are just as good. Matter of fact, it would be a good place to live, I think. Coolum is nice. It’s a small, well-presented village on a great beach. You walk from the caravan park straight onto the fine white sands of Coolum Beach. Just up the road a bit is Peregian Beach which is a bit more swish and another nice village setting. We had a good look around Maroochydore which is certainly more commercial and built up, but gee it’s river is nice.
We basically had a beach holiday for a week. Didn’t do a whole lot, but had a whole lot of swims in the ocean & relaxed. Looked around a bit, explored between Maroochydore & Noosa and took an unsuccessful half-day fishing charter on the Noosa River. Did not catch a fish between us but were entertained by the vessel’s ratbag ‘captain’ who, to be sure, will be out of a job one day soon due to his naive political incorrectness. We did have a feast on freshly caught crab that he cooked up and I have to say that it was nice to see some of the upper reaches of the Noosa River, including Richard Bransons hideaway ranch.
ACCOMMODTAION RATING:
COOLUM BEACH HOLIDAY PARK 8/10
Great wrap up of your adventures in QLD. I’m adding Townsville to our travel stops for next year with Dolly after your rave. Hope your last leg of the trip goes just as smoothly. See you in Forster. Jenny and Stephen
So lovely to see this massive adventure continue. Was wishing I was popping corks with you at Emu Park. 1 year – so cool!! Enjoy the final weeks! Miss you both and have enjoyed seeing bits and pieces of the journey. xoxo from the US