Beaches .... sometimes

We made our way to Rollingstone which is a little town consisting of a general store and a pub in the middle of nowhere around 5km from a pristine beach (Balgal Beach). We managed to score another classically great site at a freecamp (Bushy Parker Park). The local Council does a highly commendable job of keeping the war memorial and surrounding grounds looking brilliant.



The edge of the park has a pleasant creek and swimming hole to enjoy.










This was one of the highly sought after camping areas for nomads. One morning it was almost empty when we went out for the day, when we returned it was chockers. New arrivals were stalking sites two mornings waiting for others to leave, with the earliest arrival being before 7.30am!

The local copper made a visit to warn everyone that low lives had been busy at nearby camps overnight, cutting security chains and taking generators, solar panels, camp chairs and anything else they could presumably flog for cash. One couple found their nice new Honda generator had been replaced with an old clunker whilst they were using it .... they had noticed a short glitch in the TV show which was when the thieves swapped the power lead over.

Part of an arvo was spent supporting the local pub but listening to drunks whining about no work was too much.

We explored a couple of spots in the nearby national park. Would be great when a tad warmer and the river and swimming holes were spectacular.

The falls (Jourama) also looked great to us even through apparently they were a disappointment to a local due to the low flow.

 

Jane and another couple we've been travelling with off and on (Greg & Libby) walked ~6km from our camp site to Balgal Beach whilst John rode the bike (and went back for the car for everyone). 

 

 

 

 

 

Balgal is one of the prettiest beaches we've seen and on this gorgeous day, there was alsmost no one on it. There is also a free camp there, however you have to knock someone off and drag their van out of the way to get in, despite the 48 hour limit. So we enjoyed a fair bit of the day here and then headed back to Rollingstone for happy hour with others we'd camped with weeks earlier.




Our next stop was Blue Water Creek which is a creative name for a brown dribble (at the moment at least). Once again, Council does an outstanding job of presenting a large park and making it available for travellers to stay at. We didn't need to pack lunch or anything, given it was a short distance down the road from Rollingstone. But it meant we were a little closer to Townsville where we wanted to spend a day and also we'd otherwise exceed the permitted max 48 hour stay at Rollingstone.




The short jump into Townsville had us spending most of the day at the waterfront (The Strand) which is the highlight of the town. It's a well thought out and balanced tourist area, blending a small number of cafes etc with lush gardens and playgrounds. 

There is also a "rock pool" which is a large salt water pool right beside the ocean. No stingers which must make it a huge attraction on hot days. It was closed for maintenance however we could imagine it packed.

We walked around the CBD for a while then headed up to the lookout (Castle Hill). This is a seriously steep climb, by road it's 2.9km long. There were many more folks running/walking/riding bikes up and down it than cars however we're not that fit.






Our second day at Blue Water was the "hang around and do nothing" day and we worked damn hard to do nothing much beyond talking with others about the special places in Australia they had been to. This included meeting our oldest travellers so far. She is 84 and he is 89 and they have been travelling for 3-4 months pa since 1979. Pretty inspiring couple.

As Blue Water was another 48 hour max stay, we packed up and journeyed the ~4 hours to Airlie Beach for a couple of days. With no nearby freecamps and having decided we really wanted to see this place, we booked in to one of the tourist parks. An afternoon was spent wandering around the town, lazing by the beach pools (which are operated by Council for anyone to use and would put many "resort pools" to shame).

We considered whether to book a day out on a boat for the next day (Sat) but realised there are so many amazing locations within a short drive of Airlie and we'd not seen any of them, so we decided to save our coin and go explore one of the gems we'd been told about. It's the Dingo Beach and Hideaway Bay area. John finally got out the inflatable kayak he bought from other travellers ~7 weeks ago and managed to get around without looking too silly.

We put some of the "saved coin" into lunch at Montes Resort at Hideaway Bay. Lovely spot, amazing water colours which don't come up in these photos but included the light blue through to deep aqua hues. All in all, a very pleasant day, all the more so as showers were expected.

Another chapter ends, with us moving on tomorrow for a camp away from the water for a night or two before we hope we can get into one of the highly sought after ones below Mackay.

Just a reminder - thanks to Bonne, you can now subscribe by email if you wish so you will get an alert when we put out any updates.

Lesson of the week

 

Photos don't lie although you don't have to post the embarrassing ones
 ..... John, loose some weight!!