Advertisement
Published: August 27th 2007
After leaving Hervey Bay we got to our next destination, ‘The town of 1770’ (what a great name!) late in the evening and yet again had to put the tent up in pitch blackness, we’re getting good at this as we’ve yet to put this new tent up in the light. We caught up again with the Irish girls from our Fraser Island trip, which included me having to drive around the area at 01.00 in the morning trying to find where their bus had dropped them off. Turned out they had been dropped 30kms away from the town and had to get a taxi to the campsite to save themselves from being dingo meat!
The following morning we had a really early start as we had a boat trip organized for our first glimpse of the Great Barrier Reef. From the town of 1770 is the southern most tip of the Great Barrier Reef and we were off to the beautiful lagoon island of Lady Musgrave. The boat was very modern, spacious and plush, unlike some of the boats I traveled on in Asia! I found the hour and a half trip out to the island great fun, but it
was fairly rough and choppy and half the boat (including Mum) lost their breakfast! Unfortunately it was a really cloudy start to the day so the waters and the reef did not show their truly spectacular colours until later after lunch when the sun came out. I had arranged two dives for myself, so Mum went ahead with all the other activities offered which included a guided trip to the small coral island to learn about its history and plants and wildlife, she actually held a big black sea slug and felt it shifting shape in her hand - ugh! She also went on the glass bottom boat trip over the coral reef and saw turtles and load of different kinds of fish, and went snorkelling.
I had a 55 minute dive around the lagoon which was awesome because there were only 3 of us in the whole of the area diving which made it feel really exclusive. I managed to see the HUGE estuary potato cod called ‘George’ who was about 5 ft long and I could have easily stuck my head in his mouth, he really was huge and was great to swim alongside. I also saw loads
of other multi-coloured coral and fish which are totally unique to the Great Barrier Reef in such vivid technicolour.
Mum and I met up back on the pontoon which the ship was tied to and had an amazing buffet lunch of steak, prawns and meats, and loads of different salads and fruit. Being just a poor traveller and always hungry, when you get a free meal you make the most of it - so I had two enormous rounded platefuls!! The old belly had to be sucked in a bit to squeeze back into my wetsuit for my second dive. I was waiting in the water for my dive instructor to join me with my head submerged getting surrounded and bombarded by hundreds of fish, thinking ‘what the hell’s going on?’ I looked up and saw him standing there with a big grin chucking fish food at me, bastard! No wonder they all took such a liking to me!
Mum went on the semi-submersible to get a better look under water at everything, and saw huge manta rays and yet more large turtles and bright coloured fish. Just as they were turning around to come back the driver got the
semi-sub trapped on the coral and another boat had to be sent out to get everyone back to the pontoon. By this time I had completed my dive so Mum and I went snorkelling together which was fun. By this time the sun had come out and the reef took on a whole new life of colour.
We got back about 5.30 and joined the girls later on for a few drinks. They had also met up with two of their friends they had met in New Zealand, Christian and Emo; these guys were completely bonkers, but a great laugh. We got told off by a few residents of the park for being too loud, so decided to stack up the ‘esky’ and head down to the beach in the pitch dark. Mum dipped out at this point, but I kept partying till around 3 am, before stumbling back (which for some reason took about half an hour) along all these dark tracks and crashing out in my tent.
The next morning we all remembered that we had booked 5 kayaks between the 11 of us for 4 hours, so off we went and paddled out down the river estuary
to the National Park area, or which would more accurately be described as ‘mud flats and mangroves’. As all of us were in double canoes bar mum who had the single and had all our car keys.
It took all of about 10 mins before the water started flying and the first two people got soaked! As you’ve probably guessed already the instigator was ME! Although Bronwyn did get me first, I miss-judged the amount of water on my paddle that I used for revenge, and got her with something like a tsunami! From there on it was paddle, paddle, splash, splash, etc. all the way for over an hour! When we finally picked a beach (mud flat) to explore, the whole sand started to move and we realized there were thousands of soldier crabs scurrying away from us. As we walked around we realized there was nothing of interest here so decided to come up with our own entertainment. Christian and Emo found that by wiggling their feet they could sink down into the mud, and so others did too. After a while it became apparent that sinking in was easy, but getting yourself out was the challenge, as
Christian found when he got down to above his knees. With a look of real concern on his face and everyone rolling round laughing rather than helping, he was stuck, going deeper, unable to free himself. After the obligatory photos session to record the event, it took 3 of us pulling hard to get him out. I can only imagine the situation if all of us had wiggled ourselves in that deep, especially as the tide was turning!
We all headed back to the kayaks, and inevitably a few people got tipped over before managing to safely get away from the shore. Mags and Orla managed to capsize themselves in their rush to get away which was even funnier. We discovered later that there were Stingrays in the water as we paddled back, and thought how lucky it was that no one had fallen or stepped on one when we had been messing around!
After returning, we packed up and headed to Rockhampton, which is the beef capital of Australia and said to have three quarters of a million cattle within a 100 km radius. So this place should know what a good steak is, my mouth was watering
at the thought!
After yet another pitching of the tent in the dark right next to the main river, we headed into town passing a sign on the way warning of the danger of crocs on the river bank. We found the highly acclaimed ‘Bush Inn and Grill’ which is said to be the best steak house, and duly ordered our huge steaks. They did not disappoint, in the words of a true Aussie, ‘they were bloody beautiful mate!’ The atmosphere in this pub was great and the closest to feeling like we were in the outback as I have had so far in my travels.
When we woke up the next day we decided to head to the Capricorn Caves which was just north of the city. The colours and rock formations of this dry cave system were superb, especially the ‘cathedral cave’ whose acoustic rating was just slightly lower than the Sydney Opera House. We had a full hour’s guided tour of the cave system and learnt all about the limestone formations, different minerals and bats that can kill you (is there anything in this country that can’t kill you??)
After last night’s delicious dish, we opted to
treat ourselves to a second meal out. This time we chose ‘The taste of Australia’ which consisted of: a steak, a crocodile steak and a kangaroo steak, and a number of bush sauces, which was perfectly complimented by a couple of ice cold schooners of Aussie’s best.
The following morning we headed to the Dreamtime Cultural Centre which Mum had really wanted to experience. We had a fantastic guided tour, which included didgeridoo demo, and a couple of goes at throwing a boomerang, plus all the history behind all the local indigenous people and their dreamtime stories, and art work. We spent the rest of the day looking around the city, which we wouldn’t class as much more than a town back in England. It seemed a nice little place, but other than what we did there wasn’t really much else on offer.
Stay tuned for the next blog - Airlie Beach and the world heritage listed, Whitsundays.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.098s; Tpl: 0.021s; cc: 16; qc: 71; dbt: 0.0521s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Eva and Si
non-member comment
HELLOOO!
Hello Char and Libby! It sounds like you're both having a fantastic time and Libby is settling into this travelling malarky very well indeed. I was just reading about your steaks and I'm now dribbling on my keyboard - how was the crocodile steak? I'm off to read your next entry now so will write again on the next one...x