Townsville to Mission Beach

October 11

Whatever we expected of Townsville we didn't find it. The beach wasn't much, the landscape uninspiring, the housing stock ditto. If there was an area of historic interest we missed it.
Their reef museum, a huge tank of coral and fish with an artificial wave motion to keep it all alive was interesting, and would probably have been more so if we hadn't seen it all already "in the wild" as it were during our cruise in the Whitsundays. Certainly, if you didn't want to go snorkelling or didn't have the time, it offered a very fair illustration of what the real reef is like.
What struck me most during our time in Townsville was the wind, blowing hard and ceaselessly. It is a reminder that this coast has been devastated at least twice by huge cyclones that wiped out all but a few sturdy brick or concrete buildings.

The road north was not very interesting either, although there were a few vistas over canefields that were pretty.
We stopped in the tiny town of Cardwell to have lunch at a picnic table on the beachfront, sheltered from the hot sun by a spreading fig. The wind was still blowing hard, whipping the fronds of palms lining the beach.



This was our lunch table - without our clutter of dishes on it:



Shortly afterwards we came to Tully, another tiny township whose claim to fame is that it has the highest rainfall per annum in Australia, about 4,000 mm. On the door of the information centre (closed because it was Sunday afternoon) was this sign:



At Mission Beach we secured a spot in the municipal campground. Cheap, shabby, but right on the beach and right in town.



As we approached the town there were many signs along the road alerting us to the presence of Cassowaries,



but sadly we didn't see any. We had to wait until the following day for that. (See next post.)

However, the palm-fringed beach was beautiful:



"Town" consisted of a small supermarket, one other, high-end, campground at twice the price, two backpacker lodgings, three bars, and about 5 restaurants ranging from hole-in-the-wall to white linen tablecloths and a wine list.
The whole place had that kind of not-yet-discovered funky aura that trendy spots like Noosa and Byron Bay must once have had.

Bowen to Townsville

October 9

We were really entering serious sugar cane and mango country now, with lush plantations coming right up to the edge of the road. There were lots of warnings about cane train crossings, but we always seemed to just miss being at one when a train went through. The best I could do was a couple of shots out the window as they cruised by.



At Townsville we found a caravan park opposite the beach and took a bus into the town, which has some fine buildings facing the waterfront parkland.



The park is full of graceful palms and a considerable number of memorials to combatants in World War II. Once again, the battle of the Coral Sea was prominent with a useful map on a granite wall showing where the U.S. fleet was deployed.



Flinders Street has a fairly attractive pedestrian mall, but on Friday afternoon it was virtually deserted. Most shops were closing and the nightlife, if any, hadn't started. From the opening hours listed on various doors, it was clear that Townsville had no late-night shopping. You'd think that in a tropical town evening would be an appealing time to browse the shops.

October 10

We're getting used to the conventions and idiosyncrasies of caravan parks. Some are full of stern notices telling you to do this or not do that. Some, usually the ones in the middle of a town, have locked amenities for which you are issued a key. Most are fairly leafy, though in Queensland they are often planted with acacias that rain leaves down on your vehicle all the time or, worse, huge fig trees that drop sticky fruit. Some, like the Townsville one which has a recommendation in Lonely Planet, are full of polite but self-absorbed travelling foreigners. Others, usually smaller ,shabbier ones, have a community of permanent residents, mainly elderly men or couples who are keen to strike up a conversation. All are clean, although some show signs of wear. Most now also have small cabins for rent on site, which provide the luxuries of kitchen, private bathroom and TV, and must be giving motels a run for their money.

The leafy ambience attracts lots of birds, particularly cockatoos and lorikeets which wake you at dawn with a racket of screeching and whistling. At Townsville rainbow lorikeets were much in evidence among the palm fronds.




The information centre had told us there was a weekend Greek festival. They didn't mention that the venue was miles away through undistinguished suburbs and shopping malls. When we got there it was disappointing, more of a picnic with rides for the kiddies and Dora the Explorer on an outdoor stage.

On our way back, we stopped at one of the malls to pick up groceries and discovered why the downtown was so dead. Everybody was out in the airconditioned halls of the same old same old chains. A town planner's nightmare.
Townsville's topography, or lack of it, lends itself to this dreck, being a vast, flat tract wrapped around Castle Hill, a brown bump with a scurf of trees. We looked for an older area with some quaint old Queenslander houses, but it wasn't apparent.

Airlie Beach to Bowen

October 8

It was tempting to stay where we were, and we did fill in the morning before moving on. Michael worked on some brush-and-ink work while I went window-shopping. (Somewhere there's a great swimsuit for me at a price I can justify for the rare occasion that I'd wear it. Not here though.)

We didn't go far. Just up the road about 80 km to Bowen. Bowen is the mango capital of Queensland and has the Big Mango to prove it:



Unfortunately for us, it's not quite mango season here, though we are able to buy good ones shipped in from the Northern Territory.

Someone from Bowen visited Chemainus on Vancouver Island and admired the murals there. The town imported the artist and together with local artists, he set about decorating Bowen's walls the same way. On the whole, we thought the Bowen murals better than the Chemainus ones.

In World War II, Bowen was the centre for the famous Catalina flying boat squadrons which did reconnaissance work, particularly in the battle of the Coral Sea. A couple of the murals record this era.



The airport also has a dusty little museum with dioramas...



...and an interesting sign in the ladies' room.



More recently, Bowen stood in for Darwin in Baz Luhrman's drama Australia, and 600 locals got jobs as extras. Posters of the movie adorn just about every shop window in town, and there's a suitable mural on one of the local banks.



The town, which must have been humming during the shooting of the movie, was pretty quiet during our stay. No doubt due to an injection of cash from its starring role in the movie, the town is tearing up its waterfront in a grand beautification project, presumably hoping to lure the kind of crowds that Airlie Beach attracts. It's hard to tell how successful this will be; right now it's miles of dust and chainlink fencing.

Black's Beach to Airlie Beach

October 6 -7

Black's Beach was the sort of place we would have stay longer if we'd had more time. The caravan park has been recently sold to a development company, and it won't be there much longer, superseded by apartments which will destroy the charm it has now.

Our next stop was Airlie Beach which was pretty much what Black's Beach will become: beach backed by a well-groomed park, backed by a street of upscale shops, selling mainly resort-style clothing at steep prices. It's quite attractive, but a far cry from the sleepy little backwater that Black's Beach will soon no longer be.

Airlie Beach is the hub for cruises of the Whitsunday Islands, tropical islets ringed by beaches and coral reefs. The sand is white, the water turquoise, the reef still colourful with coral and fish, although it's sad to see the extent of damage to the coral caused by thinning of the ozone layer, human trespass, fertilizer run-off and numerous other nasty things.

We hoped our own trespass on this fragile ecosystem wasn't going to contribute too much to its decline. There are a ton of different packages available: one, two, three- day or weeklong cruises on motorboats, catamarans, sailing ships or small planes. Or you can book into an island resort. We chose a one-day cruise that focused on natural beauty. It offered no waterslides, imitation coral reefs, jumping pillows(!!) or other kid-attracting features and so the vast majority of our fellow passengers were adults, mostly affectionate young couples, mostly German.

The crew were young, efficient, artificially jolly. They took us first to a hilltop lookout on Hook Island to give us an overview of the area. As every other boat had this on their itinerary, it was a bit like being on a conveyor belt, but there's no doubt that the view was worth it.





Leila, a young Belgian woman we had struck up a conversation with took a photo of us both at the prime viewing point.



On the railings as we marched single file along were plaques explaining the aboriginal myths about the place, though we had scarcely time to read them, let alone line up a photo, as we were chivvied along.



We then cruised to Whitehaven Beach, the distant curve of white sand in my second photo. We had about ninety minutes here to loll on the beach and swim in the warm waters. The blonde on-board photographer spent this time arranging couples in tourist brochure or discreetly suggestive poses, or having the families jump in the air. As she got near us, we got up and casually strolled away to the other end of the beach.

Our last stop was the best. We were taken to a point where the reef came close to the shore, issued with wetsuits and snorkels and had an hour or so of seeing some of the coral and fish that made the Great Barrier Reef so famous.
Amazing fish, and some amazing coral, but many stretches of it bleached-bone grey and dead.
It was a long day, but worthwhile, and met our criterion of something we hadn't done before.

Maryborough

September 29

On the road again, heading for Maryborough, not far north but recommended to us as a town of historic interest.

As we approached, the sky was dark with ominous looking reddish-brown clouds. Bushfire, I thought, but when I commented to the caretaker at Maryborough's caravan park, she shrugged. "Probably cane fields."



Of course. We are now in sugar cane country, and they burn off the fields when the crop has been harvested. No wonder nobody seemed to be taking any notice of the smoke. However, on the evening news, we heard that it was indeed a bushfire and that the firefighters were exhausted from a long day of bringing it under control.

For many years Maryborough thrived as the second largest port after Brisbane, partly because of all the sugar cane being shipped from the mills there. Most are gone or derelict now.

Only this state-of-industrial-art one remains, but the former wealth of the town is evident in the stock of fine old buildings. We enjoyed the informative museum and the general store, operated by the National Trust and maintained as it was in its heyday. There is also a lovely park and lake with great numbers of ibis nesting on an island in the middle.

Despite the grand buildings, however, Maryborough has a slightly sad feeling. No lively bistros or sidewalk cafes line its broad streets. Considering it's school holiday time, there are few young people about, and a preponderance of elderly and handicapped. Some shops are closed, others open only on weekends.
You have to hope that its future holds a second period of prosperity.

One of the fascinating details I learned in the museum was the history of John Carne Bidwill, who gave his name to a number of Australian plants, particularly the wonderful Bunya Bunya, Araucaria bidwilli. I'm glad he is remembered in botanical nomenclature because he had a short life of more bad fortune than most.
According to the museum's information, he came from England to Australia to be the new director of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney. However, on arrival, due apparently to some bureaucratic error, the post was given to someone else.
His consolation prize was to be sent to Maryborough to be Commissioner of Lands. While there he began to collect plant specimens and develop a garden to showcase them. He also sent seeds, including the Araucaria, to Kew Gardens.
Then his superiors charged him with finding a more inland route to Brisbane than the coastal road. He and his party became lost and were rescued by aborigines after surviving for 8 days without food and water. The experience broke his health and he died soon after, at the age of 38.

After his death, his plants were all auctioned off with two exceptions: a bottle tree, now in the grounds of the local courthouse; and a Bunya Bunya that was transferred to Maryborough's municipal park.
My photo of that magnificent tree was unsuccessful, but here's one of a similar size in Rockhampton's botanic garden.

Boreen Point

September 26

In the morning we went for a long walk along the lakeshore, passing a caravan and tenting site chock-a-block with happy campers. It's the middle of school holidays in Queensland, and many families have migrated to the coast where the kids can ride their bikes, swim and dig in the sand while the adults lounge in folding chairs and drink copious amounts of beer. Some of the tent and awning constructions are quite elaborate, especially where friends appear to have booked adjoining sites and set up a maze of interlocking tents, vans and canopies.

Nevertheless, the lake is so large that it is easy to find secluded spaces, especially if you don't mind hiking along the foreshore trails for some distance.



Cousin Jeff tired us out with just such a walk to what he says is the "prettiest beach in Australia (or did he say the world?)



September 27

We drove to the thriving upscale beach community of Noosa Heads and walked again, along the beach.

A true Queenslander, Jeff was appropriately attired to combat the hole in the ozone layer that lies over eastern Australia.



Others were soaking up the rays.



On our way back towards the car park, we sighted a koala in a tree overhanging the headland. It's rare to see these creatures anywhere but in a wildlife preserve, but they are apparently common in the Noosa area. Not easy to photograph though.




Noosa's main shopping street was thronged with young, beautiful people. Presumably also rich, judging by the prices in the clothing shops. A swimsuit that caught my eye was $250. I settled for a passionfruit icecream instead.

After dinner back at Boreen Point Jeff left to drive back to Brisbane. Tomorrow will be back at the office for him.

September 28

We decided to stay on at Jeff's cottage for another day, just lazing on the deck, walking through the town and along the shore again.
We are both tremendously charmed by the pelicans, which can be seen in groups or singly anywhere that there is water, whether it's lake, river or beach.

The Adventure Begins - Week 1

September 17, 2009

Goodbye to Elizabeth Flats and our Katoomba sojourn. All our worldly possessions, except for a couple of suitcases, have been packed into boxes and driven away into storage by the moving company.
Roland and George waved us off from the front gate.


First stop the Sydney suburb of Turramurra to spend the evening with sister Caroline and her family.

September 18

After our first night in the van, parked on the street outside Caroline’s place, we said goodbye to family and drove north on the Pacific Highway, heading for Brisbane.
At Bulahdelah, we bought provisions for the evening meal and I photographed our lumbering beast of burden,



... actually a beautiful ’65 Chevy van borrowed from our friends, John and Susan, who also own the lovely wooden boat in which we made our Nepean River cruise(see earlier post)

Here's Michael doing the first fill-up.



On Caroline’s recommendation we were aiming to spend our first official night on the road at Seal Rocks, a cluster of small holiday cottages clinging to the shore below a high headland.
Here we aquired a site in the local caravan park and set off to climb the headland and inspect its historic lighthouse. On the way, we could look down on a narrow cleft between the rocks where the water came rushing in.



The lightkeeper’s cottages are now expensive holiday rental suites.



While they look delightful and have spectacular views along the adjoining beaches, the constant wind that whips around their exposed site makes it much less pleasant to be there than my pictures show.
The beach on the windy side of the headland was deserted.

It’s still a little early for the water to be pleasant for swimming, but even on a calm day, this is such a secluded area that few people would be about.
On the lee side, near our caravan park, a couple of brave lads were splashing in the brilliant turquoise water, trying to surf an occasional little wave rolling in. There’s a small fishing camp here, and a few picturesque old boats pulled up on the sand.




The craggy rocks offshore are the Seal Rocks that give the place its name.



They stretch deceptively far out into the ocean, and at least one ship has come to disaster trying to navigate between them. The lighthouse beam still warns seagoing vessels to keep well away.

This whole section of the coast is part of Myall Lakes National Park, and wildlife is easy to see and hear. We passed a dingo on our climb to the lighthouse, seemingly undisturbed by our presence. Bush turkeys roamed the grass in a camping reserve ...



... where we debated spending the night before settling for the luxury of a powered site with hot showers. We also saw and heard kookaburras and many tiny birds twittering in the surrounding bush.

September 19

A bright ,clear day and time before we leave for another walk along the nearby beach. This time I noticed strands of morning glory growing wild along the roadside, their soft lilac flowers wide open in the morning sunshine.



Travelling on we decided to take the “tourist route” suggested by a highway sign. This took us to the pretty town of Wingham with its central park lined by palm trees. We had lunch there sitting at one of their picnic tables.
The tourist route signs had not warned us that there were about 18km of dirt road on this particular detour! Yes, the route led us through high country with great views down into valleys and even across to the ocean, but the road was corrugated, potholed and dusty. By the time we hit bitumen again, everything in our van was coated in fine dust. Including us.
Around Comboyne, another attractive country town, we admired plantations of Paulownia trees in flower.




A fairly recent addition to the Australian landscape, they are grown for paper pulp.

We were tired after negotiating the winding dirt road and searched out a camping area near Macksville. Gumma Reserve didn’t sound lovely, but it was on the edge of Warrell Creek a broad, smooth waterway. This was a basic camping area, but at least had a toilets and a tank of drinking water. Other campers sharing the riverbank with us seemed to be retirees or families with young children. After dark, it was pitch-black, and everyone went to bed early.

September 20

Sunday morning. Quick breakfast and we were off up the road, not very far, to Nambucca Heads, a town we remembered from an earlier visit. The Nambucca River enters the ocean here, and there are both ocean beaches and the sandy riverbank from which to swim. We found a waterside spot in a caravan park alongside the river. Kayakers and a lone pelican paddled by.



it was a serene place to relax and write our respective records of the trip so far.



After lunch we walked towards the town alongside the river. Just past our campsite, a boardwalk begins that leads all the way to the mouth of the river and and a long breakwater running out to the ocean.
All the rocks along the breakwater are painted with the names of people who have visited the town. It’s sanctioned graffiti, some of it quite entertaining. Some families have recorded every year that they have returned, others have drawn little cartoons. I’m not sure whether I like it but it certainly beats unsanctioned graffiti, which I guess is the alternative.
From the end of the breakwater we were able to follow a path over the sand dunes to the nearest surfing beach, obviously popular on this sunny weekend afternoon.
By the time we returned to our van, the tide had receded to leave a long sand bar in front of our campsite. A few of our neighbours were out there in the low evening light with their fishing rods.



For dinner we were hoping to re-visit Matilda’s, a pleasant restaurant near the water, but unfortunately it’s closed Sundays. Instead we ended up at the local RSL club, a huge glass-fronted structure on the riverbank. RSL is the acronym for Returned Services League, although anybody can join and visitors like us merely have to sign in to be issued a temporary membership. Every town of any size in Australia has one of these, or a Bowlo ( Lawn Bowling Club). They all make pots of money from poker machines and other forms of gambling, including raffles for which the prizes are usually trays of steak or chicken. The raffles are so popular and frequent that they have given rise to the uniquely Australian expression “couldn’t win a chook raffle” for a particularly unlucky person.
The Nambucca Heads RSL boasts a Thai restaurant, but it is also closed Sundays so we have to settle for the bistro, which offers a hamburger or fish-and-chips sort of menu. In one corner of the vast room there’s a blonde belting out old Elvis and Patsy Cline standards. We sit at the other end and watch the passing parade of diners, most of them quite overweight - which is not surprising if they eat here often.

September 21

The Foreshore Caravan Park has been a pleasant place to stay, but we have to continue our journey northwards. After a brief stop in the larger town of Coffs Harbour we visited Woolgoolga briefly, lured by the promise of a whale watching lookout. Seeing no whales, we carried on to Corimbi for lunch in a park on the headland overlooking a long stretch of deserted beach.



After Corimbi the highway turns inland towards Grafton, a town famous for its jacaranda festival. We were too early for the jacaranda blossoms and I have to say that many of the trees we saw looked sick and desiccated. The town has been subjected to both drought and floods in recent times, so perhaps the trees are finding it a struggle to survive. There was a lovely street of mature fig trees as compensation, though, and Michael was enchanted by some of the old, wide-verandahed houses, perched high off the ground to defy regular floods.
By the time we reached the smaller, nondescript town of Casino we were tired, and it had begun to rain. We found an odd little campground behind a gas station, mostly occupied by permanent tenants. Its amenities were spotlessly clean, however, with great water pressure and softer water than we had during our years in Katoomba. As I left this building later that evening I trod on something squishy. This turned out to be a large green frog which fortunately seemed unharmed. The overhead light was very yellow which makes it appear more lurid in my photo than it actually was.



September 22

By morning the rain had departed, although the sky remained cloudy all morning. We drove through dull country to the attractive town of Lismore, then on to Nimbin, which has a reputation as a centre of counter-culture. Just before the town are the Nimbin Rocks, odd pinnacles rising abruptly from the ground.



The town itself certainly had the look of a hippie enclave of the late ‘60s, but it all seemed more a theme park for tourists than the authentic article. There were lots of shops selling – and burning – incense, along with tie-dyed T-shirts, beads, Indian print skirts, hemp clothing, and so forth. And there were lots of psychedelic shop signs, many with references to dope.





But nary a bakery selling homemade bread, or any reference to growing or selling organic vegetables. These people were entrepreneurs, not back-to–the-landers.
Along the roadside further on we came to a roadside stall selling fruit and vegetables, though not from a market garden nearby. Nonetheless we were able to buy local olives there and a mango (from the Northern Territory).

By mid-afternoon we had reached Murwillumbah, a town of some character on the banks of the Tweed River. Its caravan park was devoid of charm,



... but we weren’t inclined to drive as far as the coast, which was probably full of holidaymakers anyway, as we were now just south of Queensland where it is already school holiday time. We secured a site under the only tree of any size in the otherwise bare tract,



In spite of the warning sign on the electricity box, neither we nor the tree shed any limbs during our stay.