On our way back through Mackay we stopped off at the marina and took a stroll amongst some rather expensive looking yachts before heading to the beach for a bite of lunch out of our camper. We then popped into the local shopping mall for some window shopping and Nicola managed to pick up a cheap ukulele which I’m sure will bring us both hours of listening pleasure.
We didn’t arrive at Airlie Beach until that evening so we headed straight to check in at our campsite before heading to the town for a walk along the high-street and a quick supermarket shop to stock up on the essentials such as milk, bread, cookies, strawberries and chocolate dipping sauce. The last three being of particular importance.
The next morning we stuck on a load of washing and headed out to check out the local beaches. Airlie was quite relaxed but filled with young families on holiday. We had a day exploring the seafront and town centre, stopping for a frozen yogurt sundae each in the afternoon, and did some planning ahead for the next couple of weeks in the evening.
One of the things we found was our destination for the next day: a small little farm stay just south of Bowen. As we pulled up to the main house we met the resident kangaroo who, aside from his visit to stick his head, quite unexpectedly, inside our camper, spent his day dosing in the shade. It really was back to basics in terms of facilities but luckily one of the girls cubicles was spider free for Nicola.
In the evening everybody gathered around the fire to share some experiences and some amazing pancakes that had been cooked up for us! A great end to a day “off”, walking around the farm checking out the kangaroo and lambs.
Saturday we went into Bowen itself, after we visited the information centre and it Giant mango sculpture. We headed up to Flagstaff Lookout, on the recommendation of one of the ladies the previous night and of the information centre, which provided us with amazing 360 degree views of the coast, islands and back inland, well worth the detour.
We then headed to Food Freaks on the marina for lunch which turned out to be a great little hidden gem. For decent prices we got great food and in fact the food in general these last few weeks seems to have been a great improvement. I’d been a little disappointed with the quality of food north of Brisbane.
Filled up with lunch we headed to check out the bays and in particular Horse Shoe Bay which was not only beautiful but had recently had a lookout built by the rotary club which again gave gorgeous views, although it was a little bit of a steep walk!
Nicola took on the drive to Townsville so I played the good passenger and filled the drive with Harry Potter quiz questions which helped massively to pass the time.
We were up early the next morning to head across Townsville and catch the ferry across to Magnetic Island. We’d gone over in the morning and paid to take the camper so that we could spend the day driving to see the bays around the island, slowly heading towards the far side of the island, another Horse Shoe Bay, to embark on another horse ride with Horse Shoe Bay Ranch.
Our two hour ride took us through the bush, breaking into a trot periodically, before emerging on the beach where we stopped for a little rest before remounting our bareback horses in our swimmers to take a short ride along the waters of the island. It was an amazing experience, although I felt strongly for my horse, having to deal with my rather boney arse directly on his back. Once on the beach we made up and redress and resaddled before heading back to the ranch. It was a beautiful evening taking us back to the ferry returning us into the now dark Townsville with the port lit up before us.
On Monday we began heading up to Mission Beach but stopped by Wallaman Falls and checked out a rather magnificent waterfall. It was my first “proper” waterfall about 700m in height and we took the opportunity to walk from the lookout at the top down the rather scenic bush track to the bottom and back, a delightful 2 kilometers of steep walking the day after a 2 hour horse ride.
We did manage however to stop for lunch at the base of the falls. Eating our sandwiches at the bottom, where we were completely alone with the huge falls, was a little surreal but a great way to spend the afternoon and gave us the much needed energy to power back up the track to the camper!
Once we had arrived in Mission beach, we bumped into François, Yolande and their three children, a Swiss family we had first encountered at Airlie beach and spent our evening eating alongside them in the camp kitchen with an Australian family which provided us with a good evening. We also learnt the it was François’ birthday the next evening and they kindly invited us to share a BBQ with them and we offered to bring some drinks in return.
We took the next day as an opportunity to explore the area, stopping at the beaches and taking a few walks along the trails. This included a nice walk from the north end of Mission Beach, up around Clump Point, to the gorgeous Narragon Beach and to a little pier. We even spotted a turtle on the way round. The afternoon was spent swimming on South Mission Beach before collecting some beer and wine on the way back to celebrate François’ birthday. We had a great evening with him and his family and met a few others in the campsite. Having not had much to drink over the last 7 weeks, me and Nicola really enjoyed the bottles of wine we polished off!
We woke up early the next morning and hired a little “tinnie” boat to go and explore the islands just off South Mission Beach. We begun out rather bumpy and slow journey out to Bedarra Island. On the way out we passed a couple of small, rather beautiful private islands, including the former holiday home for Sean Connery. Eventually we made our way into the small beach, on which we were allowed to land, on the very beautiful Bedarra Island for a quick look around. After a little time admiring the island and the turtle swimming by we decided to carry on exploring, however we quickly discovered the joys of trying to free up a wedged anchor from the sea bed! After 30 hair raising minutes we finally got it free and continued our voyage.
We had a lovely sail back up to and around the coast of Dunk Island, the main island in it’s group, and moored up on the beach and took a little walk around island, which was devastated by a recent cyclone, seeing a few of the old parts of the resort. After a toilet break we headed back to the boat to find out that this time the anchor had definitively not got stuck and indeed had allowed the boat to position itself around half a kilometre out of the bay. Luckily there was a kind Alf Stewart type of character who took me out to the boat so that I could re-anchor it to the island.
After our eventful sea retrieval we spent the afternoon on the beach watching large fish swim along underneath us we headed back to shore before spending the evening with a pizza cooked at our campsite’s “proper” coal pizza oven. All we have left now is the journey up to Port Douglas in the morning and a couple of days there before we hand our beloved camper back in Cairns.
A Ginger Down Under
11th August 2015