Superman and Muz write; fishing/camping on the Calliope River

We think Murray and Brenda have become seasoned travellers-they have become so confident or blasé?  travellers, that they ignore ‘warning signs.

Calliope River had been recommended to us as a lovely spot to camp, but there is a time limit. The river is 12 kms inland from Gladstone and is a tidal river with a very strong tidal flow, especially at the bridge.

What a lovely spot to camp-not crowded at all-we chose the sth side of the river and camped as close as we could to the river-so we didn’t have too far to pull in the fish.

Murray set up the fishing table and Muz and I sat in the chairs 24/7 fishing. We were able to see the water rats that came out at night, fossicking along the bank for bits of bait.

Our fishing spot enabled us  an early morning reflection shot,

 and the evening colours-we couldn’t decide if it was a bush fire.

Murray caught a huge flathead that John cooked for us.

The following night John cooked a lovely stew on the camp fire. Amazingly, people had campfires, despite a closed fire season in Queensland.

John, Patthedog and Murray

One day we thought we saw a crocodile in the river, but we called across to the caravanners on the other side-they assured us it was only a log.

Friday – the locals arrived with their race horses-these were exercised in the water, the jet skis hooning up and down the river-the fishing had dried up so, time for us to move on to our next resting spot-we chose 24 15 11 S, 151 44 06 E.  

Mary's flower

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.

We met someone who removed the shell from this dead turtle at Kinka Beach. The lady was going to cure the shell by letting the ants eat the flesh that was still sticking to the shell. When we saw the turtle it stank....

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.



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.

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!

 Tuesday we will be at Kinka Beach, for a week. Marie will be joining us. Then the following six weeks we will cruising somewhere-avoiding the wet or the fires or the floods and of course the midgees. We intend to have Xmas on the Sunshine Coast.