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Published: July 10th 2009
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Day 75 - Much a croc about nothing
Byfield State Forest - Yepoon
What a weird night that was! Darryl said a car pulled up in the middle of the night and then drove off and I woke up thinking I could see flames outside the van! Delusional already!
The plan was to spend another night here but we’d only registered for one at the moment. It’s $4.85 per person to stay in the National Park camp sites and this one doesn’t appear to have a departure time limit which means we can go out for the day and if we decide to stay another night we just complete another self registration form. As we’re driving out the ranger is checking the registration box so we have a quick chat to tell her our plan, which she’s fine with and then head off.
So, the plan for today was to go down to the Byfield Conservation Park which is a sand park and then come back and go round the walking tracks in the Forest. We’d talked quite a lot about the conservation park and whether or not we thought we needed to pay the $25 permit
required to drive on to the beach if we were just going to the day visitor area. Anyway, having discussed it around the campfire last night with the others we all agreed that the day visitor area must surely be excluded from the charge, it would be ridiculous to expect people to pay that just for the day. Through the dirt tracks we went and shortly started to see signs for the conservation park, nothing about needing a permit other than to drive on the beach - excellent, we’re not doing that so we should be fine! The track starts to get quite sandy and the tracks start to get deeper. Not too much of an issue as we select 4WD, after all we tackled the Freshwater track off Rainbow Beach with no problem at all. We hadn’t dropped our tyres pressures for that so we didn’t drop them for this. BIG MISTAKE!!! Along the early stages of the track we see signs saying keep left, so we do. Then we see a sign saying that we’re going into Sand Dunes and to check our tyre pressures! Bugger! Dropping the tyre pressures would have been no problem but we then
realised we didn’t have our pump to get them back up! We carried on as stopping would have probably got us stuck anyway but from here on in we were at the mercy of the sand dunes and just keeping our fingers crossed that the pressure in the tyres would be ok. Then came a fork in the road with no sign saying ‘Keep Left’ so we didn’t, we went right! BIGGER MISTAKE!! It got more and more hairy and then came the point where there was no more forward motion from PIE, the tyre pressures were just not helping at all and there was no way we were going to make it any further up the dune track. This is where quick thinking from driver Howells got us out of a fairly sticky situation, which admittedly we’d put ourselves in! Anyway, reverse gear was selected and down we went. This was a very windy, rough, full on sand track and driving that in reverse and not actually meeting anything coming up from behind made us wonder if we were in fact going up a ‘downward’ track. We’ll never know but we were thankful to get back to the bottom,
turn around with our tail between our legs but our precious car intact! When it says on the leaflets ‘sand driving experience is essential’ it obviously means more than the sand driving we’ve already done! It sounds worse than it probably was but it was enough of a scare to hopefully remind us that we cannot just ‘do’ stuff out here, we have to be better prepared.
On the way back we stopped at Water Park Creek which is another of the forests campsites where estuarine crocodiles have been seen in the past few years. The boardwalk is open though so we figure they’re not around today?! We’ve read our ‘be croc wise’ leaflets thoroughly, we know what we have to do should we see one….RUN LIKE THE WIND!! It also clearly says that we should not swim in the creek here or at Red Rock (our campsite) but that swimming is permitted at Stony Creek, the third campsite. I wonder if the crocodiles understand that they are not allowed in Stony Creek?! Oh well, we walk the pleasant boardwalk and marvel at the mirror image the creek is giving on this bright, sunny day and then laugh out
loud at the rope swing tied to the overhanging tree! Presumably this was to avoid breaking the swimming rule altogether because you’d be jumping into the creek?! Who knows but we didn’t see any signs of crocs there today and neither did we find any of the venomous Bullrouts (freshwater Stonefish!) which also allegedly frequent the area!
We thought we’d check out Corbetts Landing next, a boat ramp further along the river in the forest. As we drove down the track a skink or a lizard, we’re not sure which, darted out in front of the car to cross in front of us! He was a cute looking little thing but gone in a flash! There were plenty of trailers down at the boat ramp so obviously a lot of people had gone out on the river today. A couple of fishermen were down there hoping to catch Whiting or Flat Head but thus far hadn’t had much luck. It wasn’t too beaut down there and we felt that we’d got as much out of the area as we could so decided to pack up camp and head over to Emu Park just along the coast. Back at camp
we found that someone, we assume the couple we may see at Carmilla Beach, had left us some firewood which was a kind thought. We added it to our pile, packed up and headed for some sun!
We’d been recommended to stay at the Bells caravan site at Emu Park by a chap we’d met back at Willowbank. Unfortunately they were full up but the Big 4 site just along the way in Yepoon had a free spot so we slipped in there, plugged in to the electric and headed off to explore! We’re now on the Capricorn Coast and looking out over the Keppel Islands. It’s really pretty here and with the sun high in the sky the day is looking up!
We fuel up, this morning’s little adventure seems to have used a bit, and then check out Double Point and Bluff Point national parks. We watched turtles grazing on the sea grass from Bluff Point’s Turtle lookout and a chap doing the 2.4km circuit passed us 4 times while we wander lazily around!
From there we headed back to Emu Park and the Singing Ship, a structure dedicated to Captain Cook who named the
area The Keppels. It really does sing too, beautifully!
So today is Friday which means tomorrow is Saturday and the last weekend of the school holidays, the wrong weekend to be heading to a free camp spot on the beach perhaps? Well, we’ll let you know tomorrow!!
Dar and Sar
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Paul, Hev & Jack
non-member comment
om"f"g! what a journey!
hey guys, really impressed with your stamina! and your blogging: picture taking and diary duty after all the days events! Any video footage of your escapades? Surely must be worth putting forward to the beeb as a documentary. Many people would say or think they were jealous of your current finger-on-the-map type lifestyle.... and I am one of those people. Lovin the blogs, send more pics if you get time! Great quality pics by the way! Tip: occasionally think of England and being back home in this bland land! - this should give you enough incentive to live it good and proper out there! will you ever come back!!? keep on blogging...and take care - paul, Hev and jack xxx