Bundy but no Rum.

Though we were in Bundaberg for a couple days, we really didn't do an awful lot there, at least not as much as we'd hoped, but what we did do was fun. The marina is lovely, with good facilities but is fairly out of the way from everything, and so we hired their car for while. We had intended to buy a heap of fresh fruit and veg from the markets but the problem is, when you get there fairly late in the day, there's not a lot left, in fact where food is concerned, there's none, so we had to make a contingency plan to go to the Shalom Market on the Sunday morning. The Market is held at the Shalom Catholic School (is it just me or is there something kind of ironic in that name?)

Sugar cane fields. Ah that sweet, sweeeeeet sugar!

The Burnet River that flows through Bundaberg. Following record floods here in 2013, the popular Midtown Marina closed when the banks collapsed beneath it and washed a section of it down the river.

In the meantime, we took a diversionary trip to a swamp, which is nowhere near as dire as it sounds although, with all good swamp stories, there were HEAPS of bats! Mwahahahahahahaaaa! Granted, they were fruit bats (or flying foxes for the pedantic) but bats none the less. Awesome!!

Bats, bats and more bats. So cute I could just give them all a cuddle!

The Baldwin Swamp Environmental Park isn't strictly the true swamp it may have begun its life as as it is surrounded by well maintained paths and large expanses of mown lawn, but it is still a large and beautiful area with some of the waterways thickly covered with matted water plants. Towering gums harboured more bird life and the birdy sounds around us were glorious, but the little buggers making the sounds were elusive and camera shy. Even the light rain we had that afternoon only added to the atmosphere and, for a change, we'd remembered to bring the umbrella.

Raindrops on the water.  So beautiful!

A lovely Purple Swamp Hen

Not grass, it's a type of water lilly I think.

Peace, quiet, beauty and tranquility right in the middle of suburbia!

Hopping Goose!

A Leeeetle Theeestle (Barb will understand!)

Hungry Honey-eater

After a good couple of hours wandering the swamplands, we made our way back through the sugar cane fields to the marina where, that night, we caught up for sundowners with our friends Peter and Cathy on their boat 'Acropora'.  For the uninitiated, sundowners is where you get together on someone's boat, or a beach, or pretty much anywhere and have a drink and nibbles, and usually another couple of drinks as the sun goes down. It has been known for sundowners to end in the wee small hours of the following morning. :)

Cathy and Peter. We first met Peter in Port Fairy and once again met up down the line. Small world.

Unfortunately the one thing we didn't end up doing in Bundaberg, was to visit the distillery where the famous Bundaberg Rum is made. Perhaps next time.

Tomorrow we get up early (again??!... double ugh!!) to head for Pancake Creek.

Location: Burnett Heads QLD 4670, Australia
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Minor flashback!! Fraser Island - Part two - we didn't resort to the Resort

Fraser Island - Kingfisher Resort Anchorage
We arrived at Fraser Island's Kingfisher Resort at around lunch time after spending a quiet night at South Whitecliffs (a pit-stop from Garry's Anchorage). It was a busy place, with ferries chugging to and from the mainland, and quite a lot of boats anchored in the bay but the anchorage is so big, there was room for many more.

Venture's big brother.

These ferries from the mainland were fairly constant

Kingfisher Resort on Fraser Island is just that.... a resort, filled with holiday makers staying in their hotel rooms, or cabins, or eco accommodation. There are swimming pools and bars, tennis courts, restaurants and shops and lots of things to do as long as you can pay for it... and very little of it interested us. About the only thing I would have liked to have done was segue (or segway if you prefer) riding on the beach but we decided that our money was better spent elsewhere (but hey, if I get back to Fraser, it'll be me, the segue and the beach, baby!!).

Speed signs for those who feel that they need to speed

Segue tracks on the beach.

These little soldier crabs covered the beach and disappeared in a flash beneath the wet sand.

We did take a wander along to the shop for a loaf of bread and a map of the island, and I did buy myself a new top (like I TOTALLY needed it!! No... really... I did!) but apart from that, the resort itself (apart from the Sand Bar, where there were showers and awesome pizza) had no appeal to us whatsoever so we looked at walking trails, of which there are many, in all different lengths, directions and difficulty.

The next morning we landed on the beach and dragged the dinghy up what felt like a kilometre of beach so that we were near the high tide mark, and tied off to an old tree. It was tough work but I think I'm actually getting biceps! We chatted to a couple of our-age blokes whose dinghy was also nearby and whose wives had gone resorting. After about 15 minutes of friendly chat, the men dragged their dinghy towards the water then headed back towards us to collect their portable engine, shoes and other bits and pieces. They chatted with us a bit more until one of them glanced back towards their dinghy. Suddenly it was panic stations as he, and then the other guy realised that the tide had come up more suddenly than they realised and their boat was slowly floating out to the open water. The first guy took off and stripped down to his undies as he raced towards the shoreline and then he plunged into the water. The trouble is, the floater had gone too far and out of safe depths, and he had to come back. They watched as their boat bobbed further out to sea. At that point Dave came to the rescue as he knew what he had to do! I raced along the beach and grabbed some young lads to help take our dinghy back down the beach. Then Dave and the second guy jumped into our dinghy and took off after the errant escapee. They finally caught up with it about half a mile off shore and brought it back in. Phew.... my hero!

Awesome pizza at the Sand Bar

The big dinghy rescue.

After all of that excitement we finally decided on the walk that took us from the Sand Bar up to a lookout and then a long ramble around the back of the resort area (which was fully fenced off to keep the dingoes out). At one stage we did leave the enclosed area (where there are much longer walks) but one look at the steepness of path, the angle of the dangles and the knee jolting roughness of the rocks changed my mind so back inside the gate we went.

View from the lookout at the beginning of Beerillbee track

The Beerillbee trail.

The walk we did take was meant to be a longish short walk along the Beerillbee trail but somehow turned into a longish long walk filled with twists and turns, ups and downs, a few birds, some awesome views and a variety of paths from well marked to rocky ruts. In the end we wound up back at the resort and it was decided that we'd burned off enough calories to have a drink and an ice cream, so it was Coke and Magnums all round. Oh yeah! We strolled out of the resort towards the beach along the road that was flanked along its full length by vehicles filled with outgoing holiday makers who were waiting around for the ferries to take them back to their workaday lives. 

Pied Butcherbird

Varied Triller

Grey Fantail

Back at the boat, and after a nap, we also planned our next move. Next stop, after a 6am start (ugh!), Bundaberg and ever closer to the Whitsundays. :)

Location: Fraser Island, Queensland, Australia
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Fraser Island - Part 1 - Dingo Daze

Curlews on a sand bar.

Fraser Island - Garry's Anchorage. 5th July - 7th July

After another calm and pleasant night in Pelican Bay, we made a late start and slowly made our way along the 18 nautical miles to Garry's Anchorage on the west coast of Fraser Island. This meant we were totally getting warmer and hopefully socks and cardigans could soon make way for T-shirts and shorts (yeah... in my dreams right now). Unfortunately my legs are so white I could blind people if the sun inadvertently shone on them. I have determined that it may be time for the fake tan on them just in case. I'd hate to be mistaken for a beacon.

The 'Garry' of Garry's Anchorage.

Garry's Anchorage at Fraser Island.

Garry's anchorage is a peaceful haven and with only a few other boats around, it felt like our own little piece of paradise but rather than just sit about on the boat, and because the day was pretty much perfect, we dropped the dinghy and went ashore where we were greeted on the beach by a bloke who could have easily talked the hind leg off of a camel and still had more chat left for the hump. Even as we left him (luckily an unsuspecting couple of blokes had arrived, the perfect distraction for a hasty getaway) I don't think he took a breath before regaling the newcomers with another tale. Apart from telling us about the track he had gone down (the one we also decided to take) we had no clue what he was talking about.

The long track, now closed to vehicles, but a lovely walk.

Just a lovely tree.

Once again the warning signs were out for possible crocodile activity so we decided that the trek inland was definitely a sensible move. The track was an old 4 wheel drive track but was closed due to a weakened bridge further along, and so we pushed past the barriers and wandered down the wheel ruts looking out for birds or any other creature that might show itself.

Fraser Island is renowned for its dingoes but because of the size of the island, we had hopes but no real expectations of actually seeing one. When we had gone about a kilometre or so along the corridor, and with not a sound around us, I jokingly said to Dave "For all we know, there could be an entire pack of dingoes behind us and we'd never know". At that, Dave spun around and bugger me.... there was a dingo not 100 metres behind us! It was awesome! We stopped dead and whipped out the cameras as it trotted slowly towards us, watching us as warily as we watched him. He was a beauty and with no ear tags, he was an unknown quantity. He came another 30 metres closer before he decided that it was time to do a disappearing act, and with that, he veered right and vanished into the bush. It was a most fantastic experience. We're fairly sure that he may have trailed us for some distance from his camouflaged position. We saw nothing but the feeling that we weren't alone was strong for a while. We walked on just past the damaged bridge before the decision was made to go back and try the other way. We didn't see any more dingoes but it didn't matter one little bit.

An absolutely unexpected sight. What a handsome boy!

Back in the clearing near the beach, we took advantage of the fact that some sensible person had decided that tables and benches under the trees were a good idea.... yay that person! It was whilst we were sitting and having a bite to eat that I noticed several huge bugs under the table. After my initial "Oh my god, oh my god get it away!!" reaction, I noticed that they weren't moving and so I didn't panic much and had a closer, though very wary look. I panicked even less when I realised that these 'bugs' were nothing but husks, the creepy sheddings of something even larger, which luckily we didn't see. Yep, they could be the stuff of every entomophobe's nightmare!  I even got brave and moved the corpse on to the table to take a closer look.

It was a big bug! I was ever so brave!

A little more exploration in the opposite direction to the dingo encounter was made. We practised our 'twitching' (bird photography)  before we succumbed to the distant beckoning call of boat caffeine. Luckily the talky man had departed the beach to find other ears to bend, so we tootled back to the boat. It had been an interesting day!

White cheeked honey eater

Oyster catcher

Easter yellow robin.

A female honey-eater of some kind.

End of part one.... stay tuned for part two of our Fraser Island exploits :)  

Location: Garry's Anchorage, Great Sandy National Park, Queensland, Australia
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Through the Great Sandy Strait

We left Tin Can Bay on Saturday heading North again.

The plan was to potter up the Great Sandy Strait to Bundaberg where we would re-provision again before heading further north and that's how it went.

The first stop was Pelican Anchorage again where we had stayed after crossing the Wide Bay Bar.  Heaps of room in there to anchor and we had a lazy afternoon watching the boats come and go.

Our next stop was Garry's Anchorage.  This is a channel between Fraser Island and Stewart Island protected from all points and well worth the stop.  We had a couple of nice lazy days there and took our first walk on Fraser Island.  I'm sure Terry will tell you about our Dingo encounter which was quite surreal to say the least.

Dawn at Garry's Anchorage

We headed off in the morning to catch a good tide through the shallows at  Tooth Island.  This is the point where the tide parts in the Sandy Strait with an outgoing tide flowing North on one side and South on the other.  The Navionics android application showed it's value here for the first time as the sand banks shift quite rapidly.  Crowd sourced data included in the application helped a lot as it showed one of the channel markers had been moved a good 200 meters whereas the chart on the main chart plotter showed the new marker position as solid ground.  It was quite weird watching our course on the chart plotter moving over solid ground when we were in 2 meters of water!

We anchored North of the shallows in South White Cliffs which is another really lovely spot, sheltered and picturesque before heading off in the morning to Kingfisher Resort. 

Venture at anchor off Kingfisher Resort

We took the dingy in to visit the resort the next day.  It was low tide and I'd calculated that we would be back after exploring around high tide which meant carting the dingy right up the beach to the high water mark.  It was about 100 meters or so and very tiring.  A couple of people were launching their dingy at the time and they kindly lent a hand hauling it up the beach.  We stood around chatting for few minutes before one of the chaps pointed out at the water and said "that's not our dingy is it?".  Unfortunately, they left their dingy just out of the water while they helped us up the beach and the tide had come in enough to float it off..  There was an offshore breeze so it was happily heading off to the mainland about 2 miles away.

One of the chaps stripped off and dived in trying to reach the boat but gave up pretty quickly.  So we hauled our dingy back down the beach and launched it on a rescue mission. 

Returning from the rescue mission escaping dingy in tow.

In the end, I think we hauled that dingy over 300 meters that day.  Not much fun but it did make us decide to get the dingy wheels out of our rear lazarette and bolt them on (this turned out a bit of a saga for another day).

We spent a couple of days anchored off the resort exploring and relaxing and then did the big push for Bundaberg.

We pulled the anchor up at about 6:00am on the Friday and headed off along with Acropora (Peter and Kath from Gelong) for Bundaberg.  Acropora is a Savage 42 built in Australia for use as charter boats.  It's a lovely centre cockpit, masthead sloop with good sheer lines and a traditional stern.  They poled out their big genny and sailed "goose wing" most of the way to Bunday while we struggled to keep up.  The wind was predicted to die right down to nothing so I didn't raise the main at all but sailed downwind with the staysail and yankee.  In the end, the wind stayed at around 10 knots all day but from right behind us.  I thought about pulling up the main a few times but it meant taking down the yankee and staysail and turning back into the wind and I got lazy and left it was it was.

We arrived in Bundy quite late in the arvo and pulled into a berth at the Marina at about 17:00 and crashed for the night.

Location: Burnett Heads QLD 4670, Australia
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Top Times in Tin Can Bay

I have decided that I am now so far behind in the blog, I'm starting again (from now) and will be adding the old blog updates as a big flashback to the past, surprise type thing. I think part of the problem is, I generally have a lot of photos, which use a lot of data to upload, and the need to constantly refresh the blog page when photos are added and moved about also uses a lot of precious data, so I'll attempt to get myself to a library and do the big updates when we're in a large town. At least that way I may be able to manage.  Also, though it kills me to do it, I'll try and be a bit more discerning when it comes to photo content... less is more. :) This may or may not work out... we'll see eh? 

July 2nd and 3rd  - TIN CAN BAY

We arrived in Tin Can Bay on the afternoon of July 2nd and instantly liked the place, and the awesomely friendly locals. The town is a lovely spot, with beautiful scenery, manicured parks and gardens and what sounds to be around a bazillion birds! It was the first time since coming up the NSW, Queensland coast that we had heard so much bird-life. It was a shame that we were only going to be spending one night here.

Some of the major chatterboxes at Tin Can Bay... thousands of Lorikeets.

After a most gorgeous sunset and after dark, we wandered over to the opposite side of the spit to 'the best takeaway shop in Queensland' according to the locals. It was pretty good but the view was better, with the moon rising over the dark, glassy water in the bay and not a breath of wind, it was a beautiful sight.

Sunset and still waters in Tin Can Bay Marina.... enough said... :)

The prettiest moonrise we've seen so far.

In the morning the birds certainly did a cracking job of replacing an alarm clock as the noisy little squawkers, tweeters and screechers began their morning raucous pre dawn. Ah well, it was nice to hear birds again. We had a leisurely breakfast and got the bikes out ready for a long trundle around town to see what we could see and to find the shops in order to stock up. Since it was fairly early, we dropped by the famous dolphin feeding but discovered upon arrival that we were just a little too late for the feeding. I was very disappointed but there was little we could do about it, so we carried on to the shops, checked out the local caffeine and sugary cake distributor and then went back to the boat.

A sad, sad sight on the way to the shops.

Later that afternoon Dave realised that the wind generator really needed putting back together so he decided that another night at the marina would be a great idea. Better than fixing the generator, it gave us another opportunity to get to the dolphin feeding earlier the following day. Totally awesome!!

Nellie feeding Mystique

Another beautiful day arrived with the same chorus of rowdy babble and chitchat from the birds. Soon after 7am we set off on the bikes for the dolphin feeding. When we got there a crowd was already gathering so tickets were purchased and coffee was ordered and we waited. Initially everyone was allowed on to the tiny beach area but then it was only fish feeder permit holders (of which I was one, Dave was just going to observe) who could go down. It's always a bit of a guess as to how many dolphins may turn up for a feed, especially on a Saturday when many dolphins follow the fishing boats out. On this particular morning only one, an old alpha male named Mystique showed up.

Mystique... a lovely old fellow.

After coming from the beach, the permit holders lined up at the small 'shop' and waited to be given our little bucket with our one fish in it. Somehow I ended up at the very back of the line and while I was there I was joined by a lovely woman Cait and her young daughter Nellie, who were on holidays and had been hoping to feed the dolphins but had arrived too late to get a fish. We got to chatting and I could see that Nellie was disappointed. I just couldn't have that and so I did what I had to do and offered Nellie my fish and we'd all go down to the water together. :)

I was a little worried that by the time we got to my fish (number 50 apparently, which was the limit) he'd be full or will have decided enough was enough and just leave, but the woman who was handing out the buckets assured me that all of these fish were nothing compared to what he would normally eat and that these particular fish were a delicacy for him. Okay then... all good.

Nellie, Cait, Dave and I went down to the waters edge and Nellie and I waded in. I held out the bucket and she took the fish by the tail and Mystique inhaled that fish straight down as though it was his first for the day. It was awesome and I know that that gorgeous little girl was thrilled with it. It made my day. That afternoon, on their way to Dreamland at the Gold Coast, Nellie drew me a most wonderful picture of a baby tiger. It made my day all over again. :D

A cheeky cormorant waiting for fish

This pelican had an att-it-tooood!

That afternoon we left the lovely hamlet of Tin Can Bay and once again made our way to Pelican Bay for the night. Tomorrow we leave again.... Fraser Island, here we come.

This bird.... just because!!

Location: Tin Can Bay QLD 4580, Australia
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I think I prefer bars that serve alcohol and more on the hungry prop

We left Double Island Point at distressingly early o'clock (sorry Terry) to get up to the first waypoint for the bar crossing just before high tide.

Sunrise on the way to Wide Bay

It actually wasn't a problem getting up early as we had a horrible night due to a 1 to 2 metre north easterly swell coming into the bay.  I had a stern anchor out which did a pretty good job of holding the stern into the swell but the boat was still pitching a lot and the very loud periodic groaning and complaints from the snubbers at both ends was extremely disconcerting.

I also got the impression that the all-rope stern anchor rode was stretching a lot and springing us back putting even more tension periodically on the bow snubber.  Difficult to prove but I suspect it was one of the issues.

We've been in some rolly places before (Farm Cove by the Opera House springs to mind) but this was an order of magnitude worse.

I had to get up around midnight and sat at the bow for a while trying to figure out a way to reduce the noise.  I eventually put out a bridle consisting of two mooring lines, one from each hawsepipe at the bow and attached the snubber to them to take the strain off the bow roller.  That did reduce the noise a bit but it reduced my anxiety a lot more which let me sleep for a couple of hours.  I don't like seeing those sort of loads on the bowsprit.

Terry got up at about 1:00am anyway and eventually kipped on the sea berth as it was a bit quieter there.  We decided not to stay in rolly anchorages ever again!

Wide Bay Bar is navigated using two waypoints (A and B) supplied by Coastguard Tin Can Bay.  I had these plotted on our chart plotter and also allowed about 100m room around waypoint B as suggested by the Coastguard as the sand bar is moving north apparently.

We arrived at the first waypoint spot-on 6:45am, half an hour before high tide along with 4 other boats and headed in towards waypoint B.  We managed to get behind them all so we could watch the fun and they could break the trail.

In the end it wasn't too bad.  It was very rolly after the turn at waypoint B with some big waves every now and then and it was pretty disconcerting to see large breaking waves about 100 meters off the port side at a couple of points but we had confidence in the coastguard people and we actually had smiles on our faces for most of the trip in.

Having said that, a bar serving ale is most definitely much more entertaining and far less stressful!

Some video of the crossing.

We dropped anchor again just around the corner in Pelican anchorage at about 8:30am, had some breakfast and went directly to bed for a few hours well deserved sleep.

Oh and do you remember from the last blog post that we lost our paravane and lure to the god of fisherfolk and a hungry prop?  Here's a pic of me in the water cutting the line off the prop.

Tired and very wet cutting about 30 meters of 50lb fishing line from the hungry prop

And you'll never believe it but, when I pulled up the stern anchor, the paravane and lure along with about 10 metres of line were snuggly attached to it :-)

So who's smiling now fisherfolk gods!