francene

We are one day from the end of our holiday. We have spent the last four days traveling southward home. There isn't much to be said about travelling. On Sunday we arrived at Coonabaraban at around lunchtime, as planned, because we wanted to visit the telescope at Siding Springs. Coonabarabran claims to be the astronomical capital of Australia, so our visit here was of particular interest to Frank, how is a keen amateur astronomer. As we were checking in to the John Oxley Caravan Park, we found a brochure advertising viewings through private telescopes belonging to a former manager of Siding Springs, so we booked in for that as well. The drive up to Siding Springs was very pleasant, offering spectacular views of the Warrumbungle National Park and an amusing array of roadside letter boxes. It ... read more

I haven't written for a while, usually because I thought there was nothing to write about and I am not sure anybody reads my writings anyway. However, on the off chance that my blog is being read, I thought I should get back to it. We arrived in Woodgate a week ago. Woodgate is a small coastal 'settlement' on the coast north of Rainbow Beach and south of Bundaberg. It has a lovely beach, across the road from the Caravan Park, and kangaroos roaming the streets. There is a small supermarket, hardware shop, pharmacy, hotel, bowls club and general store. At the entrance to the park is Serenity Cafe, where we have our daily cappuccino in the company of blue-faced honey-eaters. At one end of Woodgate is Theodolite Creek and at the other is the Burrum ... read more

I had a day off from writing yesterday, therefore I will cover two days today. The love hate relationship with nature continues. I continue to lather creams on my bites to control the itch but have worked out that it is best to keep covered early in the morning and from late afternoon. I don't think a conversion to Islam is going to be necessary after all. We went fishing from the beach yesterday. We caught two swallow-tailed darts, one each. We also caught a couple of other fish, but as they were a bit on the small side we sent them back. When we were packing everything into the car I noticed a sea eagle sitting on a ledge above us. I suggested to Frank that it might like our left-over bait. He thought it ... read more

Our plans for the day of collecting bait and then fishing came to fruition today. Getting caught in a torrential downpour wasn't part of the plan, but that happened too. After breakfast we went down to the inlet to pump for yabbies. It is a joint effort. Frank does all the strenuous work and I hold the bucket. If they are near me, I will collect the yabbies, but mostly Frank disperses the sand in an area I can't reach, therefore I am happy to just hold the bucket and say "there's one". We we so absorbed in our hunting and gathering this morning, with our backs to the oncoming weather, that we managed to get soaked in long lasting heavy rain. Then it was a quick trip to the bait shop to but more bait ... read more

Thank you, Simon. Despite his best efforts at getting us lost, we have indeed reached our destination. It took us three full days of driving, and I don't know how many kilometres, but here we are at Rainbow Beach. I don't know what it looks like because we arrived just as it was getting dark. We set up in the dark and made dinner. Tomorrow we will investigate and plan our time here. It was much more pleasant getting up this morning than it was yesterday. 11.4 degrees compared to -3.9 degrees, it was almost a heatwave! The day wasn't as sunny though, and we ran into a little rain new Gympie. The weather forecast is for a little rain every day for the week. Hopefully it won't interfere too much with our plans, whatever they ... read more