Parked up at Sarina

     We have decided to take a break for some time and have settled at Campwin beach east of Sarina. Will be spending the next year here, deciding what we will do.
     Campwin beach is a lovely quiet beach side village with friendly locals, white sand beachs to walk the puppies on each day, less than 10 minutes from Sarina which has everything that one would need.

     Spending my time unpacking Dilligaf and seeing the sights around the area.

Boat ramp at Freshwater point

              While we were waiting for the real estate to grant us the privilege of renting one of their  properties, we were lucky enough to meet a local that said we could park up at his place out towards Armstrong beach, he has a few acres and plenty of room to put us up for as long as we needed.
     We ventured out there on Wednesday 2nd. I drove to Freshwater point to have a look, as it was only up the road a bit, nothing much there but residential area, the view from the boat ramp toward the south was outstanding.

     To cut a long story short we finally secured the house we are now in at Campwin beach on Friday 4th. It is unfurnished and we have gathered a few essentials over the last couple of weeks.

Campwin beach - low tide

Campwin beach - high tide

                                                    On the 14th the spectacle of the super moon, when the moon was the closest to earth since 1948, saw some really big tide movement, from less than half a metre up to 6 metres. The local beach at Campwin was something to see with the contrasting tides as the photo's show.

Marine life at Low tide Campwin beach

 

     At the lowest tide there was a veritable marine garden to behold, just like diving on a reef - without the water. This photo shows only a small sample of what was actually there to be seen, I was pleasantly amazed at the sight.

Turtle tracks on Sarina beach

     Sarina beach and Campwin beach are among the few beaches along this coast which host Marine Turtles from November, to lay thier eggs. A huge effort on their behalf, to drag themselves up the beach and lay the eggs at the highest point they can get above high tide then drag themselves back to the water, leaving the eggs to look after themselves until they hatch.   Walking the beach on Wednesday 16th, early morning, we found these tracks of a turtle as it made it's way up the beach and back to the water. Each drag mark is nearly three feet wide with the flipper marks on each side of the drag mark. The turtle never laid this time, hopefully she will try again.

Sun setting on coal ships at Hay Point

   

     While I was at the lookout trying to get some photo's of the super moon on the 14th, the ships waiting to get in to Hay Point were lit up by setting sun, they stood out like beacons on the horizon, jewels on the ocean!

Sunset from lookout at Campwin

Then as the sun went down this glorious scene begged to be photographed - lovely!!

     Will blog again when I have anything interesting to blog about.  Cheers 'til then.

15th to 31st October - going south

                     Saturday 15th

 Townsville port early Sat. morn

    The Townsville air show was a blast!!  Although we started out parked a bit far away, we moved a closer and saw most of the display.
     the picture left is the view over the ocean from where we first parked up on Port road.


      We spent the weekend and the first few days of the week at Currajong, doing a bit of shopping and catching with a few friends before departing on Thursday 20th, making our way south.

                     Friday 21st
     We got as far as Homehill yesterday spending the night at the comfort stop, it is a well set up stop-over with laundry, showers etc. I made use of the laundry while there.
    

Jim enjoying a drink on the verandah

     Traveling on today we had breakfast at a rest area south of Bowen and lunch at Bloomsbury, making about 240 km this morning. Refueled Dilligaf at the servo here and continued to the Leap Hotel about 20km north of Mackay. The hotel here has a camp area free to use,  just have a beer or something at the pub. We had a takeaway dinner and a drink or two, as the picture of Jim here shows.
             
                         Saturday 22nd

The Leap mountain

     The hotel and few residences (most of whom (I think) would commute to Mackay to work) rests in the hollow of hills and mountain's. The morning was pretty cool with a heavy dew on the ground. We walked to the base of this hill this morning before leaving for Sarina fairly early.

Shadows on the beach at Cape Palmerston

Once in town we had to wait for the real estate to open, we are looking at establishing a new home base.  We went on to Cape Palmerston Holiday park by mid morning on Saturday for the weekend. The beach is lovely and we enjoyed a walk and a splash.

Sunset at Cape Palmerston

          The sunset was very colourful with our bus in the fore.




                             Monday 24th

Marion creek - low tide

Marion creek - high tide

     We ventured to Notch Point road to find a quiet camp spot on the bank of Marion creek. I was amazed see the water rushing up the creek as the tide came in, it went from a sand filled stream to a wide and pretty river, the tides vary by about 5 mtrs, huge movement in my book, never seen the like. I tried my luck at fishing on the high tide resulting in one whiting. GREAT!
    The two photo's of the creek show a little of what I saw between the high and low of the tides.
     We stayed here until Thursday then ventured in to Sarina.

                Thursday 27th
    After restocking the larder at  Woolworth's this morning and checking the real estate we drove out to Sarina beach where we had a look at a property, spending a couple of days there. The beach is long and the tide goes out a long way but it is all sand no matter what the tide.

Coal loading terminal at Hay point

                    Saturday 29th
      Drove around the corner to Campwin beach this morning where we had a good view of the coal loading terminal at Hay Point, south of Mackay, and the surrounding seascape. BEAUTIFUL!! I counted 13 ships waiting to get into the wharf to do what they do.

      Later in the afternoon we drove back into Sarina township parking near the sports park for the next couple of days.
               
                         Sunday 30th
     The local showground markets are on today, held on the last Sunday of every month. I took a drive out to have a look, it is a huge market with all sorts of anything that you might want (and some you may not). I only had a quick look as I will take more time when it comes around again next month.

                         Monday 31st
                  Awaiting real estate agents!! 
     October is over! I'll blog again in November.