Sunday, 28 October 2012
Marie arrives....
En-route from Darwin, stopping off to spend 5 days with us, before she flies back to NZ.
If you look closely you will see "Julia".
We are camping at a Tourist Park caravan park at Kinka Beach, sth of Yeppoon, 35 minutes from Rockhampton, on the coast. KB is not far from Emu Park and Keppel Island is out there somewhere.
Emu Park is famous for the 'singing ship' - a sculpture made from halyards that 'sings' when it is very windy.
We have found the Queensland Coast is not ‘free’ camping friendly. Yes, there are ‘free’ camps, but limited to 20-48 hours!. After spending as long as we liked in central/inland Queensland, we are needing to plan our travels a bit more thoroughly, rather than moving when we felt like it.
There is nothing much here, the beach is certainly not as nice as Mission Beach. The tide goes out a long way and it is a bit more sludgey to walk on. A small swimming pool keeps us cool, as we try out our new togs…
But Marie is with us and we are having a good catch up, plenty of shopping, swimming in the pool, card playing etc.
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| Japanese platter for lunch |
It has been a Mission Beach Reunion – Lynn and Dave, John and ‘Pat thedog’, and Linda and John from the UK, who are touring Australia on his Honda Goldwing 1500cc bike-they shipped it over here.
Sometime this week – early November, we will head south-not sure where.
Sunday, 21 October 2012
MIDGEE ATTACK....
–zip up the vents, shut the windows, cover up – we have been attacked-
Despite catching a lovely feed of trevally at Balgal Beach and free camping we were attacked-just like Dundee Beach and Kakadu-this time worse. So we moved down the road to St Helens Beach-set up camp and along came a local riding her 3 wheeled chain bike-she told us the council was thinking of closing down this campground due to the severe midgee attacks. This was a council campground requesting a $22 per nite, plus 20 cents for a shower. On the plus side were clean free gas bbqs.
On dusk, they, (midgees), arrived and stayed through till the morning. Despite covering up and spraying ourselves with all our formulas-we were severely attacked.
The next day we drove to Greenhill, hoping that at Bill and Mary’s we would be safe. Bill and Mary are a lovely couple we met last year at Point Westall and again at Elliston. They live at Greenhill which is 86kms south of Mackay, on the coast. 100 houses are here and around 30 are permanently occupied. There is no shop, but a camping ground has just opened. They have a lovely house set amongst gum trees and looking out to sea - a very pleasant setting for a camp spot.
We were not getting any sleep-so we drove to Sarina-40 minutes from Bill and Mary’s to visit the hospital to check out our midgee’s. Within 2 hours we had been seen by a nurse and a doctor-who told us all about these midgees that pee on you-the pee is poisonious and if you itch or rub you spread the poison through your body-the poison makes the skin burn-it is an awful feeling. Armed now with phenergen?, calamine lotion, we drove back feeling relieved that relief was just around the corner. Well, these tablets knocked me out-I slept for 3 days-just managing to wake for ablutions-Murray slept, fished his way through the course of medication. We are on the mend!
Saturday, 13 October 2012
Mission Beach to Balgal Bay to Townsville
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| 2 German children reading to Superman and Muz in German at Mission Beach - the children spoke no English |
Sad to leave MB, after spending 40 days here – at the Council Campground on the beach-not in the camp #6 book – a well kept secret – we felt we needed a change. It is a beautiful part of Queensland and if it wasn’t for the threat of cyclones and the expensive rates and insurance – we would have consider this as a retirement haven.
We had heard on the radio about the roadworks and road closures on the Ingham Range and here we were, at long last-a vast network of camps, gates for road construction crews-once the new road is open it will certainly be much safer.
The scenery changed once we were over the otherside. Gone were the thick lush green trees and rainforest landscape. There were trees, but more gums, sparsely populated trees, brown savannah grass, pineapple plantations, still sugar plantations.
Balgal Bay – free 48hr campsite on the beach and a river with a boat ramp, general store, hot food and the daily paper, was our destination. Probably, about 15 sites overlooking a grassed area with rotundas to sit under for happy hour. There were BBqs- a bit dirty, clean toilets and a dump point.
Having recovered from our midgie outbreak at Dundee Beach/Kakadu, we didn’t take precautions the first night and now we are covered in huge welts – back on the Telfast tablets, administrating quantities of tee tree oil and rubbing the ‘Locals’ ointment into our skin.
Yesterday I caught 3 trevally from the pontoon and 2 sooty grunters. Murray caught 2 fish. Between us-(John and Pat had now joined us), we cooked the fish and bought chips, had a good feed, washed down with NZ sauvvy blanc and a Henwoods port. The beach is lovely – but the stingers have arrived and local crocs cruise by-too risky to swim.
Townsvile – not a misprint-Townsville-is the correct spelling. Well, this city? is 55kms from Balgal Bay-and Murray was keen to watch the league test on TV-so we treated ourselves to a caravan park. Rated as 4 star – we didn’t think to ask if there was a TV – once we were booked in and set up-we discovered no TV!! How disappointing!
Townsville did not offer too much for us to see-although I was keen to go to the markets and check out the waterfront-we had been told it was better than Cairns. We are both very disappointed with Townsville – it is brown, dry, old, the town is dirty, the footpaths very much in dis-repair-no shops open on a Saturday, the Info Centre staff were un-helpful-more interested in knitting and telling us about their thick slice of raisin toast that they had to eat at some café on the Strand – their response to our question – “is there a yum cha restaurant in Townsville”.
We walked from the Info centre down Flinders Street to the Strand, along here to Gregory Street, up the hill to Castle Hill, up and down Stanley Street to Sturt Street – back to the ‘truck’ in a carpark building-which we thought was $3.00, but was $3 per hour, $9.00 later, after our long walk. We did stop for a lovely lunch at GYO, (Japanese tapas bar restaurant.) No markets today, tomorrow-too bad we will be gone. We noticed that, even the schools,and parks are brown-has Townsville run out of water?
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| the old and the new |
The Strand was not as interesting as the Esplande at Cairns. We saw a small waterpark for children.
The 'hands on' info stands – some worked and some didn’t. A good idea – they give an oral commentary of sights that are around you – by placing your hand on top. But the one by the fountain had the commentary, but no water in the fountain.
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| Castlehill |
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| the old and the new |
But there was a silver lining- we found a Dan Murphy’s…… Now where to store it all…..
We are off to Greenhill – sth of Mackay to see some friends that we met last year at Point Westall. October 24th, we will pick up Marie from Rockhampton Airport and spend the week at Kinka Beach together.
Sunday, 7 October 2012
Wednesday, 3 October 2012
Superman writes about reading, children and creativity
I have had a busy week observing family relationships, children at play, children reading and discussing the pros and cons of using reading as a reward for good behaviour!
Firstly, what defines a ‘family’ – is it a group of parents and children living in the same household, or a family - mum/dad and children, or is a family one that consists of parents of either sex, or of both sexes, with children. Camping opposite us over the weekend we watched 2 guys with twin 2 year old girls camping. The little girls had 2 daddies-who they referred to as daddy and they all slept together in the one tent. Daddy1 – the daddy who did the majority of care – he did the potty training and put the satin boxer shorts on the little girls and yelled at the little girls to stop whining. Emptying the potty consisted of throwing the wees down the side of the tent or putting the number 2’s into the rubbish bin. They all kept happy on their baccy- Muz says this is the beginning of a nursery rhyme!.....
We have been watching a ‘desert village’ unfold on the beach. Each day a group of children from the camp next to us have been creating a desert – all from recycled materials. Built at the high tide mark, this creation has lasted all week. Brenda gave a ‘creator’ a flower to plant. The ‘desert village’ is now abandoned – stormy weather has sent the family’s home…..
As you know I love to read and be read to, but when does reading become a reward. Well, apparently when you have a child who does not drink enough fluid – finish the drink bottle and as a reward the child can read Harry Potter. We discussed this over a roast meal with our friend John, Brenda and Murray, and we concluded
· As an adult the child will associate fluid with reading – drinking, then think – now I can read or will the child drink too much so they can read
· Will the child come to hate reading – because they dislike drinking fluid
· Or will the child have a hang-up about drinking and reading – growing to dislike both
· Or is it any different from withdrawing other privileges like computer games or ipad usage, Or mobile phone usage
Either way it is sad to see a child who is passionate about reading, unable to do so, unless he has had enough fluid that day. The reason behind the fluid intake is medical.
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| John and his oven he made from a 9kg gas bottle |
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| and the end result.... |
One hot day, we saw some children holding a snake – a man had found it on the beach. It is a python –non venomous and they live in the undergrowth – next to where we are camping.
And on that same day we saw a ‘snoozing’ kiwi.
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