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!!

Day 7: Atherton Tablelands

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Last night in the van park I wondered how we would all sleep with the noise of the traffic.  Finn didn’t stir at all!  This is ironic, given that when we were staying at places with nearly no noise, other than birds and nature he woke quite often, and the sound of trucks thundering down the Bruce Highway soothed him, go figure!  I slept ok, and Shan said the sound of the trucks was no different to my snoring!

So we left our vista at Townsville this morning and headed into town to find a tackle store.  Townsville seems to be growing before our eyes, it took us a while to find a tackle store, and when we did Shan walked in and they were playing the last edition of The Fishing DVD and a segment with Shan hosting was on the telly, how funny is that!

Once we left the ‘Ville and headed north we decided to refer to our trusty Camps Australia Wide #6 book and see what sites were coming up.  The reason behind this is so that we could check out sites before we try to stop there on our way home next week, so there are no more nasty surprises like yesterday’s Alligator Creek debacle!

A few of the places looked awesome, one of the places in the book appeared to accept campers but when we got there we were met with a bit sign saying ‘Tents Only’, damn……lucky we were just doing a reconnaissance.

We think we will stay at Bushy Parker Rest Area near Rollingstone on the way home, it looked quite good – and our camper and car will fit.

Our next stop was to look at Big Crystal Rest Area, we took a wrong turn and found a really awesome creek, but not the park, oh well.

The day was getting on so we decided to push on to Atherton.

The whole way Finn kept asking “how long to Uncle Brent’s?”, seriously I don’t think he could have said it any more if he tried.  No offence Brent, but we are getting sick of hearing your name, and it is even worse now we have arrived!

When we got here we took Finn for a tour of Brent’s classroom, and he was mesmerised.  There may be a hidden teacher in Finn, who knows!

We have been fortunate to be able to park our camper at one of Brent and Leigh’s neighbours houses (Brent and Leigh’s driveway is too steep), and we are even poaching the neighbours power to top up our batteries – see we are hobos after all!

It seems strange being in a house again, we have spent nearly every waking hour lately outdoors and having a roof over our heads is strange….and we have only been away for a week!  Honestly we could stay in our camper forever if we could!

So I think that is enough for today, dinner is ready and after that I think we are planning our camping trip and meals to Tinaroo on Friday and Saturday.

Till tomorrow

The Wanderin’ Watson’s