Australia

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It was ironic that as soon as we arrived back in Hervey Bay the weather cleared up. In fact we were woken up by the sun shining through the gaps in our curtains, making the air in the van feel hot and dense even at 7am.

It felt good to be able to get the aircon on and go back to sleep, knowing that we didn’t have to be anywhere.

We set off just before check out time at 10am, with the intention of driving straight to our next destination, Town of 1770. On the way, however, we got lured into visiting a lovely little stretch of beach called Woodgate Bay. First we visited it via a track through the bush. The road was unsealed (and this time our van wasn’t insured to drive on dirt roads) so we left it at the end of the lane and walked the 500m through the forest, listening to the noisy cicada beetles all around us. It felt a unsettling as there was nobody around and the bush was alive with wildlife. We’d read that lizards of 1.5m can regularly be seen, then there are the snakes, spiders and crocs that Australia is famous for!

When we came out at the narrow strip of sand, Matt was disappointed to see there were no kangaroos on the beach, as he’d read that they can usually be seen there. We looked around for some wild koalas but we’d recently learnt that out of around 100 types of eucalyptus tree, they only actually live in six of them so there wasn‘t a lot of chance there either.

Although the beach was pretty, and there wasn’t a single person in sight, I was more than pleased to get back into our van again, as large flying bugs had appeared and Henring had told us the day before that they give nasty bites regardless of whether you wear insect repellent.

We drove further along the bay and found a more suitable entrance to the beach. This was in the small village of Woodgate which was more or less one row of houses. It looked like a great spot for a relaxing holiday - there was a small village shop, a café and not much else, but the houses overlooked the beautiful quiet beach. It was advertised as the antidote to the high rise resorts. Just our sort of place and well worth the detour we took to get there.

We didn’t stay long as we wanted to get to Town of 1770 and get checked into a campsite close to the marina. En route we called into the neighbouring town for some supplies and by late afternoon we pulled into the campground that was around the corner from the harbour. It was the cheapest site we’d stayed in since arriving in Australia and it was lovely. The sites were in a woodland setting, making it cool and shady. The pitches were spacious and private and within ten minutes I was sitting outside in one of our fold out chairs, reading a book and drinking beer while Matt was in the pool cooling off.

The evening was warm, and we sat out in shorts and t-shirts until after it went dark (when Matt started to get eaten alive by the mossies so we had to go inside).

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