Bowen Qld

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Bowen turned out to be the sleepy coastal town that the tourists essentially bypassed (unjustifiably so). The town lies at the northern end of the Whitsunday Coast, and has several islands just offshore. Only 6% of the one million travellers who navigate the Bruce Highway in the north of Queensland detour into Bowen. The locals and other travellers asked that we not tell anyone about Bowen. We found Bowen to be a gem of a place to stay. Bowen was also one of the key locations where the film Australia was shot, the town being used to portray Darwin in the 1940’s.

Bowen is home of course to the Big Mango, and is the source of the original Kensington Pride Mango (aka Bowen Mango), Australia’s most popular mango. The first mango tree was planted in Bowen in the 1880’s, and it is believed the plant originated in India. KP mangoes are grown in Darwin, Katherine, Kununurra and Central and Coastal north Queensland, which ensures a regular supply as the mangoes ripen across the summer in the various regions in which they are grown.

Our caravan park was located next to the Bowen Golf Course, which lies right on Queens Beach, which proved to be an excellent flat, hard sand beach to walk on. We did several walks along the 5 km beach. By far our most frequent activity, given the awesome sunny weather we enjoyed during our stay, was to drive down to Horseshoe Bay, and swim and snorkel. There were several other local beaches that we visited, however, we kept coming back to the sheltered waters of Horseshoe Bay. There were coral sections at both sides of the bay, that attracted a good amount of tropical fish, and I would spend hours each day diving down among the coral and fish, taking shots with my underwater camera.

What was also impressive about Horseshoe Bay was the shady grassed area at the edge of the beach, where we would bring our beach chairs each day and sit and read between swims. An excellent café just behind the beach provided the coffee and cake to sustain our snorkelling.

The pool in our caravan park, which was incidently named Wangaratta By the Sea (presumably to appeal to the Victorians who head north for the winter), was large and kept spotlessly clean, and we utilized the pool to cool off in the hot weather at least twice a day. It seemed that most of the grey nomads staying in the park were from Victoria.

We would definitely stay in Bowen again when next in North Queensland.

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