Trip 2, Day 4: Hervey Bay

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We left Calliope this morning and went to Gladstone so Shan could do his calls.  While he was doing that Finn, Jack and I went to a park.  Finn befriended a little girl and they played tag for ages.  When Shan was done in Gladstone we headed to Bundaberg.

Again Finn, Jack and I played in a park while Shan worked, Finn thought it was the best day ever, two parks in two different towns. 

Then his day got even better when we headed to Hervey Bay.  Our mates Denise and Bargy have 60 acres and have an absolute menagerie.  They have two horses, guineafowl, chooks, geese, a dog, cows in the paddock, a rat, fish, crabs and a blue tongue lizard.  I actually don’t know who was more excited, Finn or me!

Our primo camping spot at Camp Bargenquast!

I became very attached to Alvin the blue tongue.   

Georgie was very proud and had us all have a hold of her pet rat, Snow Ball.  Snow Ball was initially called Snow White, until two little lumps developed near ‘her’ tail, turns out She was actually a He, hence the name change!

After we set up the camper and had a couple of drinks we headed into the Hervey Bay Boat Club for dinner.  The food there is always awesome.  

 Finn and Georgie playing on the phone at dinner.  Too Cute!

We then went back to Bargy’s and just chilled, we had such a good time there we are heading up again on the weekend for a night!  Sorry Bargy’s you cant get rid of us now!

Anyway that is day 4!

The Wanderin’ Watson’s

P.S. we are heading home tomorrow so this will be my last post for this trip – unless something totally riveting happens on the way home.  We are planning on taking the Fraser Coast Tourist Drive tomorrow to try a different road home – anytime we can avoid the Bruce Highway we do.

Trip 2, Day 3: Still Calliope Free Camp

Last night we were sitting around the fire – which was lovely.  Though every chance he got Jack would pinch our chairs.  We decided that when Shan does his calls tomorrow he will pick up a cheap seat for Jack – SPOILT MUCH?

So we all slept pretty well, Jack and Finn didn’t stir.  I woke up quite a bit and remembered that last time we stayed here the same thing happened, you see there is a bloody rooster nearby and it seems to think that as soon as it is dark he needs to wake you up, pretty much every half hour we heard “cock-a-doodle-doo”.  Note to self:  Bring Ear Plugs next time!

When Shan got up to get ready for work he nearly had a heart attack, he couldn’t see either Finn or Jack on the floor of the camper……closer inspection revealed that Jack was under Finn’s covers and Finn had pulled them over his head!  Crisis averted.

Jack decided to run off this morning to visit a trailer that had two racing Greyhounds in it, he came back quick smart when one of them barked at him!  Little sook.

Finn, Jack and I just played and chilled while Shan was at work.  When he got back in the arvo we went for a walk to get more fire wood and to throw the ball for Jack.

I ask, "Finn what is on your face?", Finn: "Nothing!", hmmmmmm

I have never seen a sign like this before, just had to take a photo of it.

Tonight we have been sitting around the fire, and wouldn’t you know it firstly Jack wouldn’t get in his new chair, he just whinged and lay in the dirt.  Then when he did get in it he made it look that uncomfortable we think we will need to invest in another chair – the $10 one just didn’t seem to do the trick!

We are off to our mates place at Hervey Bay tomorrow, so that will be fun, Finn will have the kids to play with, Jack will have the dog, Patch, to play with, and Shan and I will have Denise and Bargy!

Till then

Shae, Shan, Finn and Jack

The Wanderin’ Watson’s

P.S. The service is terrible here so you wont see this post for a day or two.

Trip 2, Day 2: Calliope free camp

I forgot to mention yesterday that when we were sitting at the pub having a drink, and Jack was up on a chair like a human, I said to Shan “can you please wipe his nose”, meaning Finn’s nose.  Shan looked at me strangely then proceeded to wipe Jack’s nose.  I thought he was taking the piss until I realised he actually thought I asked him to wipe the dog’s nose!  It was quite amusing, maybe it was one of those ‘had to be there’ moments.

So we had a pretty early night last night.  We would have stayed up later if we had a fire but oh well.

The campsites were quite close together and during the night I heard a soft voice say ‘mummy’ to which I responded ‘mmm’, then there was nothing so I went back to sleep.  Shan told me this morning that the little voice was not in fact Finn, it was our neighbours kids. 

This morning while we were pottering around packing up Finn went to play with the kids nearby.  One little girl was so sweet, she kept giving Finn shells.  She then even gave Shan and a piece of ribbon – we reckon she will go far if she knows how to butter up parents at the ripe old age of 4!

Shan and I yet again were asked about our Australian Off Road Camper, its crazy how many people ask about it!  We are stoked with it.

Anyway we got chatting while we were packing up and got side tracked, I forgot that I had put the car keys in the camper overnight for safe keeping……suffice to say we had to open the camper up a little for Shan to get to the keys.  It was actually quite funny.

After we left Woodgate Beach we decided to take the back way up to Bundaberg to avoid the highway.  We ended up going through Bundy and Shan showed me the areas worst hit by the floods earlier in the year, I tell you what it really hit there hard!

We then ended up going to 1770 and planned on eating lunch at the pub there, though luck wasn’t on our side, there were bugger all parks for cars, let alone a 4WD towing a camper.

Luckily Shan had noticed the Agnes Tavern, which is on the way into Agnes Water, we went there and there were plenty of parks.  Jack stayed in the car and had a nanna nap while we went in for lunch (yes we did open the windows and leave water!).

 

On our way into the pub Finn was fascinated by a yellow 3 wheeler motorbike, you see there was a motorbike club that had also stopped there for lunch.

 

Finn waiting for our food.

I have to say the food was awesome, Shan is sick of me raving about it….but hey I am a Gargan after all!  I actually called Dad after lunch to tell him how great it was.

After lunch we headed to where we are now, Calliope free camp.  And, yes, we did remember to stay up the top this time.  Shan, Finn and Jack have just gone for a walk while I sit here and write this.

 Finn and Jack lead the way (yes Finn is wearing his bike helmet - he insisted!)

Safety first!

 

Jack seems much more settled today, I think he has the hang of camping down pat now. 

Shan is off on work calls tomorrow so Finn, Jack and I will just hang at camp and see what adventures come our way.

Enough for today.

Shae, Shan, Finn and the fur child Jack

The Wanderin’ Watson’s

Trip 2: Day 1 Woodgate Beach

So we have taken the opportunity to come away with Shan for one of his Northern Run’s for work.

He is due in Rocky early week so we decided to leave today and have made it to Woodgate Beach.  We have been here once to check it out – briefly, and loads of our friends have stayed here before.  It is truly lovely, a real beachside town.  We are staying in the caravan park and the people who run it are so nice.

It is the second caravan park we have stayed in since we owned the Australian Off Road Camper, and even though we are not ‘roughing it’, it is so nice to be back out camping again.

When we opened the camper it smelled like smoke, reminiscent of campfires of out last trip!  Sadly we can’t have a fire here, though the mozzie coils are providing smoke for us!

The best thing about this trip so far is that we have brought our fur child on this trip, yes that’s right Jack is here with us.  When we were getting organized this morning Jack looked like a total sad sack until he realized he was coming with us.  I don’t think he has EVER jumped in the car fast enough.

Jack Roughing it!

He still seems a bit unsure of what we are doing, but a trip to the beach and some off lead time made him happy.  I even let Shan off the leash for 5 mins hahah.

So we saw the BIGGEST Grey  Roo we have ever seen.  Initially we thought it was a really dodgy stone statue someone had in their yard……then it moved!

There are so many kangaroos around here it is really cool.

When we were at the beach we had a flick of a stick bait in the surf, but with Jack, and Finn, Shannon I found it difficult to fish seriously.

When we were on the beach attempting to fish Jack discovered his first Soldier Crabs!   Too cute.

 Check out the video above!

We went to the pub at Woodgate for a couple of drinks, Jack clearly thought he was too good to sit on the floor!

 

Cheezy grin from Jack

We are headed to Calliope tomorrow and will stay there while Shan goes and does his calls in Rocky and Gladstone, then we will head to Hervey Bay to stay in the camper on a mates property.

We will keep you posted on our trip and I promise this time I will finish the trips blogs!

We are only away for 4 nights this time so surely I can manage that!

So enough for today.

Shae, Shan and Finn

The Wanderin’ Watson’s

Day......12 and 13 and home

So we didn’t actually finish the last lot of blogs!  So you all probably think we are either:

A)   Lost

B)   Never got home

C)   Won lotto (we wish)

D)   Got really slack and caught up with life back at home and work we never got around to finishing it.

If you picked C, unfortunately we can’t give you a loan, as the correct answer is D!

So after Rollingstone we hit up Carmila Beach again (it is one of my personal favorites!).

Then we went to Calliope free camp – the southern side.  Apparently most people stay on the north side, but the cool kids (aka the Wanderin’ Watson’s) stay on the south.  Shan had checked it our prior to the floods at the start of the year and it was all rolling green mowed sites.

When we arrived (post floods) it was pretty much 4wd access only.  We settled on a spot that was flat and set up…..then we realized there was another area up a hill, which  unfortunately was way nicer than where we were – it was too hard to pack up and move so we stayed where we were.   Should we go again (which we are tomorrow) we will go straight to the top!

Anyway, I will now start the blog on our current trip!

Day 11: On the Road to Rollingstone

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Well last night was COLD, we all sat around the fire which we had cranking.  There was a spectacular full moon (which you will see when I get Shan to download his photos), it was very impressive.

We had visitors to our campsite, some of Brent’s friends called in for dinner and it was really  nice to catch up.

The camping area was pretty packed last night, and with crowds come idiots.  That is a harsh word but it is true.  There was a group of people blaring their music, swearing and carrying on till at least 1:30 – 2 am this morning.  Then in all their wisdom they decided to get in their car and do laps around the camp ground – what losers!  It really is inconsiderate.

Had we been the type of people we would have gone to their camp early this morning and banged pots together….but we aren’t those type of people (this time!).

This morning was a busy one packing up to hit the road again.  It was also a sad one as we had to say good bye to Uncle Brent :(

We decided to head to the free camp ground at Rollingstone.  We had an uneventful drive and arrived here close to 3.

It is a really well appointed camp ground, and there is the most beautiful creek just through the bush.  It is so pretty that it looks fake!

We just met our neighbour for the evening, Mick, he is very much a free spirited hippy type.  He is awesome on the guitar – which makes for a nice change from the annoying party music last night and early this morning.

We are going to have a cruisy night and head Mackay way tomorrow, to either Smally’s Beach or back to Carmila Beach.  Carmila is a bit further away so we will see what time we get away tomorrow.

I feel like I am letting you all down today as there are no exciting fish stories!

I guess I could re-hash the story from yesterday’s catch…..trust me I have been talking about it all day :)

Till tomorrow

The Wanderin’ Watson’s

Day 10: Tinaroo

We are still at Tinaroo.  Last night was really relaxing sitting around the camp fire.  Shan got some awesome shots of Finn and Brent playing with sparklers.

After that Shan went for a walk and took some really cool photos using slow exposure – how freaky are the pics below that were taken in the dark – you can see stars and everything.  He is a clever little cookie isn’t he.

You know, camping is great, you leave all the mod cons from home behind…..well most people do.  The people camped near us watched a movie in their tent using a data projector!  We could see it through the wall of their tent and hear their surround sound – what is with that????  We had wondered why they were running their generator all day, well now we know…..they had to charge up batteries for their computer, speakers and data projector, duh.

It got very cold during the night.  A lot of people are of the misconception that the Atherton Tablelands are really hot, however as they are in fact a tableland and as far west as Charleville it can get quite cool.

Finn has been loving camping with Uncle Brent, though it poses problems when we want to go for a fish or something as he insists he wont leave Uncle Brent.  We are concerned Brent thinks we only came to see him so we could have a babysitter for a few days!

Shan and I ducked out this morning quickly to check our red claw pots, one had no bait left, and the other was the one which was stuck.

We have good news, we managed to free the stuck pot.  It took some pulling, and some more pulling but finally it came free – unfortunately it was empty too.

Brent and Leigh brought a pot out too so we re-set them with bait and put them out again.  We did a spot check this arvo and they were empty so we shifted them a bit, keep you fingers crossed for us.

Oh I nearly forgot to mention that Shan and I went for a fish and Finn and Brent were in Brent’s kayak.  I managed to catch myself a little ripper!  What do you think?

I caught it casting and retrieving from the Hobie kayak, which if I do say so myself is quite a feat in itself.

Where I caught it was a distance from our camp, so Brent decided to paddle back to get our camera for us, then we decided to paddle back ourselves so we could measure it on our Brag Mat.  In order to take the fish to camp Shan had to grip it by it’s mouth and swim it along side the kayak while I peddled, the trip back to camp has never seemed so slow! 

It was good to have numerous witnesses to my catch, firstly Brent, Finn and Shan saw the whole thing first hand, and Geoff got to see the fish when we got back to camp.  Leigh and Nicola were out at the Yungaburra markets so they only got to see the photos.  Nicola thought we had photo shopped the picture to make the fish look bigger…we DIDN’T trust me, it was bloody heavy and measured 121 cm’s.  My biggest Barra yet! (hopefully until this afternoon when we have another crack at them).

Day 9: Tinaroo

Sorry  that I missed blogging yesterday, it was full on afternoon, we went to meet Brent and Leigh’s friends for coffee, then Leigh and I had to do our camp shopping, and then we went out for dinner as a belated 40^th Birthday to Leigh.

We went to a Swiss Italian restaurant, called Nick’s, the food was amazing.  I was lucky enough to get a doggy bag of leftovers and had a beautiful Ravioli lunch whilst camping….ahh this is the life.

Today has also been a busy one.  We woke up this morning and had to get firewood, do you think we could find the industrial estate at Tolga?  Eventually we found it and got actual real firewood – not that hippy ‘eco’ stuff we got caught out with last time.

 The drive to get firewood.

We decided to drive out to our camping spot at Downfall Creek, Tinaroo, early to get the pick of the spots before every man and their dog turn up.  One of the places we staked out yesterday on our morning drive was already taken (the hide of them, kidding), so we ended up picking a spot we didn’t really check out yesterday and it has turned out to be a total ripper of a spot.

We are camping with Brent and Leigh and their friends Geoff and Nicola.  Geoff turned up at lunchtime to set up and Brent, Leigh and Nicola will turn up after they finish work.  We are looking forward to watching the Gargan’s (Brent and Leigh) set up and we will offer constructive criticism :p.

Shan, Finn and I went out for a Hobie Kayak this afternoon to put our red claw pots out (we only have two as that is all the shop had), then we had a bit of a fish, within 15 mins Shan hooked a thumping Sootie, it was very impressive.  I noticed  he had a lure with all sharp and clean hooks (not like the dodgy lure he told me to use the other day!).

After our short lived fishing session we thought we would do a premature spot check on one of our pots.  I grabbed the buoy and pulled up the slack rope, and then pulled, and pulled, the pot was snagged on something!  How does a pot get stuck when you just drop it over the side?  Shan and I are currently back at shore working on a strategy to free the rogue pot.  We are going to head out closer to dark to check them.  I will let you know if we have any luck, both catching red claw and freeing the stuck pot.

While we were milling around the campsite, I came up with the idea of using a tent pole to retrieve the rogue pot, the pole wasn’t long enough!

So we will tackle that issue tomorrow,  we have just had dinner and are now sitting around the fire, which is lovely.

Till tomorrow

The Wanderin’ Watson’s and some extras.

P.S. Shan also caught a catfish from the bank this arvo.

Shan's Pics - Finally!

Carmila Beach south of Mackay

Finn does some low tide exploring at Carmila

Looking back at our camp - the tide goes out for MILES at Carmila

Finn being a typical boy on EVERYTHING, and into EVERYTHING!

Out of the car and Finn hit the beach running! Does he look stoked to you?

Sneaky little mud pockets lurked beneath the sand in some spots

Finn with a collection of shells he found fossicking the beach

Our Carmila Beach site right on the waterfront

Finn admiring the Carmila sunrise

This is what sunrise looks like Shae!!!

Crazy looking looking fungus up at Eungella

The view from our Eungella Dam campsite!

Finn exploring the waters edge at Eungella

It was fresh at Eungella, but that just made the camp fire that much more enjoyable!

Our campsite visitor photo bombing! He was in no hurry to leave and inspected EVERYTHING!!

Shae and a Sooty Grunter in the Hobie!

Eungella is an awesome spot for Sooties and super pretty as well

Finn watching the sunset colours fade across the mountain range

Finn putting on a sparkler twirling show after dinner! I guess its the poverty version of Fijian fire twirling!!

Nothing like sitting by the camp fire!!