To the Gulf and Beyond!: Post Hervey Bay

Emerald was a nice camp. We stayed in the caravan park as we needed a bit of a tub, and recharge. The camp was pretty big, but we basically got the last 2 sites, so that was good.

From Emerald we headed east – still with the head wind – towards Rockhampton. Emerald is home to the world’s largest painting on an easel. It is the Sunflowers by Vincent Van Gough – see photo with Wendy standing in front. We didn’t stop there, and just turned south down the Bruce Highway, with no real objective, but it was going to be a road-side camp. We eventually found one about 60kms north of Gin Gin. It was a nice spot, but it was pretty well on the road, and of course, the Road Trains don’t stop when the sun goes down. We were about 100m from the road, but it sounded like they were outside our door. Wendy said she was a bit worried that one may veer off the road and come through our camp. I assured her that they would have to get through the concrete large undercover eating area, and then through K&B before they got us!

From there, our next sleepover was Hervey Bay. However, before we got there, we had to call into K’s sister Sylvia in Bauple. Bauple is about 40kms south of Maryborough. Bauple is famous –even though no one has heard of it – because Bauple is aboriginal for Macadamia, and that is where macadamias were first found! So there you go. The visit went well, and we had another look over their property with its large variety of tropical fruit trees.

From Bauple, the next stop – after lunch – was Hervey Bay (HB). We arrived after lunch and checked into the Big-4 – after a few strange turns – at Point Vernon (PV). PV is at the northern end of HB, and is a nice little spot. The HB stop was going to be a nice rest for 4 days and that is what it was. We didn’t run around much, but we did get some fishing in, and some nice food, coffee and things. K & I ended up fishing in the Elie Creek run out into the bay at the north of PV, and it was quite amazing. The bay is very flat, so at low tide, pretty well the whole bay. We had to walk about 500m to get to the creek, but it was nice to walk across the sound and see the variety of sand types, contours and puddles. We fished the end of low tide, and stayed until the water was in again, and it was up to our thighs. We caught a few flatheads over the days, and K took his home, but I put mine back in, even though it was legal – only because I measured it wrong and thought it was too small!

We went out to the end of the 800m pier a few times and watched the bogan locals trying to catch fish. They must get something big out there as quite a few people had special carts built to wheel out all their rods and gear. The water is at least 10m below the pier, so if you had a good fish, it would be an interesting lift up to the top as there was no ladder, or landing on the pier.

One of the good things about the bay north of Pt Vernon, is that it faces far enough north so that the sun sets over the water, hence some great shots of the setting sun over the low tide sand and puddles. I think 90% of the photos I took were of the sunset, sunrise, full moon rising and fishing – see below. It was a good 4 days with great weather, but we did have a couple of cool nights.

I am typing this at Garry’s place after spending 3 nights here visiting with the family. It was so good to see everyone again – it has been quite a while since we were up. We haven’t done much except talk, drink tea/coffee and eat! We took Garry and Chris out for dinner last night down to the Boat Shed at Maroochydore and it was really nice. We left Garry & Chris’ after hearing the good news that their approval had been granted to start building on their new property. I may go back sometime and help with the build. Our plan was to head south to the Gold Coast for 4 nights, via a visit to Dave and Tania near Redcliffe. It was so good to catch up with Dave, Tania and Jesse. We missed them last year when they stayed at our place, as we were overseas. Jesse has really grown up and is such a little man, but also a typical little boy! K&B spent some time visiting their friends while we have been up north, and we caught up with them last night when we landed in Tallabudgera. We will visit some friends this week, do a bit of fishing, and then head further south.

The full moon rising over Fraizer Island