Episode three of our Australian trip

 Episode 3

Monday 5th June 2023

We had rain overnight. It seemed very heavy on our roof, but that might have just been because it is a van.

Today we came to Fisherman's Camping ground at Emu Park. So far no emus. It is much nicer than 1770.

There aren’t any emus, but there are flying foxes living in the trees between the camp and the beach. They eat pollen, nectar and fruit. They are important to seed dispersal and can spread 60,000 seeds in a night. I wonder how they found that out? They fly about 50 ks to feed. In the morning they came back to roost for the day. They look like pegs hanging up on the trees.

On our way here, we were stopped just outside of Rockhampton, by a bus accident. It happened earlier in the morning.Two camels had come out of a nearby property and ran into the bus. The camels were dead or had been euthanized and the bus didn’t look much better. The whole of the front had been destroyed. Even the steering wheel was gone. We got to the accident site just before lunch time. The police officer said we could wait, but it would be at least an hour. The other option was to go back and take a coast road. Eddie put it into the GPS and it was going to be 79 km, where we only had 29 to go from where we were. We decided to stay and have lunch while we waited. One of the advantages of being in a camper van. It took just over an hour to finish the job.

We were lucky to get in here as it is very busy. June, July and August are the peak times as so many come up from the south to miss the cold. The costs are a bit more as a result.

Tuesday 6th June 2023

The day started off fine, but it was cooler and rainy this afternoon. I put the washing into the dryer after they had been on the line for about 3 hours. 

We walked into Emu Park this morning and got some groceries. We wanted to get out some cash, but the ATM at the bank was broken. We went to the supermarket where there was one outside, so that was good.

After getting the groceries and Eddie’s cider we went and looked at the museum. It was quite good and we got a bit of a guided tour from one of the volunteers. Eddie wasn’t too sure that he wanted her hovering over his shoulder, but she was very knowledgeable about things and the area. It’s called Emu Park because the original native name meant the place of emus, so the name seemed appropriate. It started off when Queensland seceded from NSW. The anniversary of that is today. Apparently there was a lot of toing and froing between the government and the people. The government wanted to start a town at Yeppoon and the people wanted one at Emu Park. There was even talk of seceding from Queensland and becoming the state of North Queensland. It was all about having a beachside resort like in Brisbane where they had Red Beach. The railway came to Emu Park first, so of course it grew first. Yeppoon didn’t get a railway until the sugarcane farmers needed to get their produce out; about 20 years later.

Wednesday 7th June 2023

Today we came to Armstrong Beach near Sarina. It was a long drive, so Eddie was pretty tired when we got here. After a quick walk to the beach, he had a nap. 

The tide goes a long way out here.

On the way to Armstrong Beach, we stopped at a place called Clairview. There is a nice campground there with a restaurant, where we bought our lunch.The camp is called Barracrab

Camp.  I had a nice burger and Eddie had fish and chips. We will try and remember it and stay at it another time. There is no swimming between October and May because of stingers in the water. It gets like that up here. There are also crocodiles to be aware of. 

We have been past different signs saying look out for kangaroos or koalas or emus. Where the signs were we never saw anything, but later we saw 2 emus. That is the only wild life we have seen all the way from Brisbane.

I have noticed that any roads going off the A1 are not paved. They  go off into the hinterland, all dust and gravel.

We have also noticed there is not a lot of fencing in the paddocks on either side of the road.

Today we saw some quite long trains carrying coal.

Thursday 8th June 2023

We had rain in the night again, but today was sunny. The wind was a bit cool too.

We went for a short walk around the village today. We found a nice walkway down to the beach. 

The crabs on the beach make patterns in the sand where they have taken the sand out of their holes. They make a star pattern, which looks neat on the beach.

We saw 4 red tailed black cockatoos on the beach today. They are rare with only about 15,000 left in the wild. Eddie was able to get a photo of one, but I didn’t. 

We are amazed how many different types of caravans there are here. I was told later that there are about 280 caravan manufacturers in Australia.

Eddie went fishing this afternoon. He caught a baby hammerhead shark and some sort of catfish. He put them both back. Rather random and not something he has ever caught before.

Friday 9th June 2023

We left Armstrong Beach and set off for Proserpine to visit Tarsh and Zane. Tarsh was our old neighbour when we lived at Matangi, many years ago. Now she is a senior constable at Airlie Beach. Zane is a maintenance man at a camping ground on the way to Airlie Beach. They have 3 boys; Xaiver, Andrew and Bastion. Tarsh’s mum, Raewyn is also camping at Tarsh’s place with her partner, Marty.

When she was a teenager, Tarsh came and swam in our swimming pool. She has long curly hair that always got into the filter and drove Eddie mad. He still teases her about it.

There is quite a large railway yard where the road to Armstrong beach comes out onto the main road. It seems to be in the middle of nowhere really.

We stopped at Sarina and bought some groceries and got more cash out. 

We had lunch at a cafe on the side of the road. While we were eating we saw a couple of trucks with a load of sugar cane on board. The harvesting season is from June until December. 

We decided not to take the ring road around MacKay, so we could see something of the town. It seems to be a nice place.

We got to Proserpine about 1pm. Raewyn was here to meet us. Tarsh was at work, and got home about 4: 30. Tarsh’s friend from school, Kelly and her husband Shane are staying with them at the moment. They have just moved up from Brisbane a while ago and are looking to settle in the area. 

Saturday 10th June 2023

Eddie and I went to Airlie Beach this morning. It is very commercial with lots of people about because it is the weekend. There is a nice man made lagoon for people to swim in. I suppose in the summer with stinger jellyfish about, it would be the safest place. There were quite a few in swimming or sunbathing. We had a bit of trouble finding somewhere to park ith our large vehicle and nearly left. Eddie was hungry, so we found a Hog’s Breath Cafe and had some lunch. 

We were heading back to Proserpine and saw a sign to Conway Beach, so we went to look at that. The tide was out a long way and the sea was very choppy. There was a little village of holiday homes. The facilities on the beach front were very nice. We made a hot drink and watched the water. A micro lite aircraft was flying overhead, so that was noisy and spoiled the ambiance of the place. 

When we got back to Proserpine, Kelly took us to the Proserpine dam. It was very pretty with a camping ground at the lake edge. It was very busy. We guessed it was the weekend and people were camping while the weather was nice. We saw a man fishing for barramundi, but had had no luck. They keep the lake stocked with barramundi, like they put trout into the lakes at home.

That’s that for this episode.