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Adam and I are up early for a spot of fishing. Unfortunately one of Adam’s rods is snapped and he immediately goes in to a terminal (almost) decline. The beach is very flat and the low tide is 100 meters out. Adam and I walk out and cast into the small surf. Adam loses interest quickly and walks over to a “ local” who fishing and weari ng a yellow fluoro shirt. He offers some advice for finding whiting at the creek entrance which we try with no success. I pop in to the office on the way out and say goodbye to the owner. Being unaware of our fishing capabilities she seems genuinely surprised that we haven’t caught any whiting.
We make excellent time and come across various examples of big things, a big mango, a big pumpkin and a big watermelon (it wasn’t that good so we didn’t photograph it). We did stop in at Prosepine for a coffee. We had high expectations but were only able to find one next door to the IGA. It was filled with gray nomads which was an obvious detraction and our coffee was the worst so far.
Now I have to say I was reluctant to do this and to be fair no one has doubted the existence of the regional black tights phenomena but as I was in the café I saw a prime example (and she had her back to us so I figured it was OK, my only concern was that someone might think I have one of those weird fat fetishes).
We decided to head to Bowen for lunch rather than the IGA car park. Bowen is a seaside town opposite the Whitsundays. We found the co-op and had prawn sandwiches overlooking the beach and islands.
One more stop before we turn off for Alligator. Whilst I have been rationing my cask wine valiantly over the last week I now need a top up. We find a bottle shop which has the kind of selection of cask wine which I would expect from a small Queensland town. A virtual nirvana of cask wine a whole wall of cask wine, I spent hours umming and aahing but finally I select a Yalumba 2 litre shiraz and have high expectations given the small size and per lire cost.
Alligator Creek is a delightfully named camp ground in the Bowling Green National Park south of Townsville. Adam is a little nervous about the name but I put him at ease by pointing out that there is in fact no alligators in Australia. The picturesque camp ground houses a number of small wallabies, bush turkeys and an unattractive bloke with no shirt. We have an unofficial tent setting up race with the older couple who have turned up at the same time as us. We emerge victorious and I have a beer in hand as I casually glance across. We’ll put the tent pegs in later.
Adam wants a rematch of the scrabble match which he narrowly won by using a trademark name. He then held it against me for next few days. I of course, now focussed, I flogged him resoundingly and I managed to use “tent” to earn 44 points (admittedly by leveraging off Adam’s “equip”) which I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to use to give him shit a bit more than “jeep”, “landcruiser” on the other hand and I’d be in all sorts of trouble. On the way to brush my teeth I found a new friend.
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