Emu Park to Kurramine Beach

We did leave Emu Park as suggested in the last blog but were unable to book into Sarina as all the parks were full; however, one of the park owners suggested we might like to stay in a little park they had recently purchased and refurbished in Koumala about 20 kms south of Sarina. We took up his offer and pulled into a very basic park but with nice new amenities, plenty of grass and a cement slab for each site.

Our neighbours for the night were very friendly and strongly recommended we visit the town pub which, of course, we did. We walked to it and were greeted by a giant croc that had just escaped from its enclosure on the upstairs verandah.

The inside walls of the pub were literally covered with photos of massive fish captures in the area and an assortment of mounted preserved fish and mudcrabs that had met their end in the Sarina waters.

The lady who owned the pub, her daughter and granddaughter were all working behind the bar which gave them plenty of time for a chat. The daughter and granddaughter were both wearing maroon jerseys and had little time for a discussion on the grandness of the New South Wales State of Origin team. I eventually had to let the matter rest, particularly as there were a few fairly big cane contractor types there who also disagreed with me.

We left the next morning and around midday settled into Queens Beach Tourist Park at Bowen. We had decided to give the place another try, especially in view of the strong messages of support we had received about the place. Previously we had only stayed there for one or two nights and had been very disappointed with it.

Neighbours in the park suggested we go to dinner at the Yacht Club so after some negotiating because it was fully booked we managed to join the table with our new friends. It turned out to be a great night with eight of us at the table. The other six had all been travelling together so we were able to swap plenty of stories about places we had been and things we had done. One of the places they mentioned was Rowes Bay Caravan Park in Townsville on the esplanade facing Magnetic Island. We put that in the memory bank for future attention.

Unfortunately we found the story about the wind blowing the '--l' out of the original name of Blowen to be true. It didn't stop for the whole time we were there.

On one of the four days we were in Bowen, Rob had a game of golf at the town course that runs adjacent to Queens Beach. The course was fairly busy so she teamed up with a couple of local blokes who gave her plenty of info about the town. She enjoyed it immensely.

We visited and walked along most of the beaches in the area which, although all beautiful, were overshadowed by the town that didn't seem to be blessed with much civic pride. Sorry Bruce and Jim, but I don't think we will be going back. That's OK though, because if we all liked the same thing, you would all be living in Port Stephens.

While we were there, we received a phone call from Rod and Sue who, in spite of Rod's misplaced love of a certain Perth based Australian Rules team who were flogged by the mighty Sydney Swans in the AFL Grand Final in 2005, have become great friends. We first met them on the eve of the game when we both pulled into a park and were neighbours at Kunanurra. Now, I am not a great follower of AFL but come the morn of the great game, I became, for Rod's benefit, one of the Swan's greatest supporters.

Rod did show concern for my impending disappointment at the outcome of the game but, come the game and him entrenched in his van and me next door in ours, there was no love lost. There were sounds of great joy next door for most of the game, right up to the last minute when the mighty Swans scored a goal that put them one point ahead, a lead they maintained until the final siren. Oh, the sounds of silence from the Frantom van were deafening. 

Anyway, to cut a long story short, the following year, when both teams again lined up for the Grand Final, the Eagles got their revenge and snuck home by one point. The feat was no doubt achieved given the added support of Rod who had actually travelled to Melbourne for the game.

Now the reason for Rod and Sue's call was to find out if we would be travelling to Cairns on our current trip. They had read my last blog and saw that we were travelling north through Queensland and wondered if we would care to visit them on Thursday Island where Sue was working in the hospital as midwifery manager and Rod as a driver for a local tour company. “Would we care to” - before the day was done we had our flights booked and we were rearing to go. However, before we could do that, we had places to go and people to see.

Our next stop was Rollingstone where, we had heard, there was a fantastic free camp spot - right on the water. When we got there we found it absolutely full, if not overfull. There was supposed to be a 48 hour stopover limit but many vans looked like they had been there for some time. We did hear that if you wanted to stay you would have to line up with all the other hopefuls at early morning. We were not that keen so went looking for an alternative.

We continued north for a few kms and came to a quite beautiful caravan park, Rollingstone Caravan Resort. It's massive and many of the sites are on the very edge of the beach overlooking the Coral Sea. Behind that is a man made lake surrounded by coconut trees and sites you can back into. Very pretty. The place was fairly full – maybe 250 vans so.  Our site was neither on the beachfront nor the lakeside but still it was close enough to both to enjoy their benefits.

There was a fair sized group of people camping on the lake who met every morning in the camp kitchen. We got to speaking to the leader of the group which turned out to be staff from all around the State of BCF stores who were having a conference. Where else and how else would the staff of Boating Camping and Fishing have their get together. BCF are great financial supporters of Marine Rescue that I am a member of back home so I was able to let the leader know how much we appreciated their support.

Cardwell was our next stop in the back yard of Ray & Marg Cerezo. We had a great night with them but before we left the next day, they took us for a drive around the town to show us some of the destructive results of cyclone Yasi that struck the little town on 3 February 2011. 

 The devastation was immense and there are still some houses that have not been repaired, some that are beyond repair. The waterfront was very badly damaged if not by the cyclone itself then certainly by the following tidal surge, estimated to have been somewhere between 3 and 7 metres. It is amazing that anything survived it. The brick public toilets that were in the foreshore park disappeared into the ocean.

When the cyclone warning was given, Ray & Marg packed up, locked up and headed inland. They have a very large shed on their property that was partly their home before they built their new one.  Unlike some residents who packed up never to return after Yasi, they are stayers and actually built their lovely home after the storm. 

Anything they could not take with them was stored in the shed (including Marg's and a neighbours cars) and the twin massive roller doors were locked shut.

When they returned after the storm they found the shed (made of besser block) still standing but both roller doors had been blown in causing considerable damage to the stored goods. Astoundingly one of the roller doors had been sucked out and to this day they have no idea where it is. Also, there were a number of containers along the back wall of the shed that were all filled with salt water and sand, blown in from the ocean about 1km away.

A message about taking care what you wish for. Ray told us how he had suggested to Marg that it would be good if someone were to shave the tops off the trees between them and the coast so that they would get a better view of the mountains that are Hinchinbrook Island just off Cardwell. Not long later, along came the cyclone that completely stripped all the trees for miles around of all their leaves and many of their branches. They got their magnificent view but it is now returning to its pre storm format as the leaves re-grow; but they won't be wishing for a repeat episode.

During our trip around the town, Ray took us to see the prestigious Hinchinbrook Resort with its very large marina, restaurants, bar and houses. All very flash, that is, it was, before the cyclone. The place got world wide TV coverage of all the boats and pontoon jetties of the marina piled in a great mound at the end of the waterway.

The storm surge was so high it lifted the jetties off their retaining pylons and they, with the vessels attached to them, were washed to the shore. Most of the vessels were beyond restoration. The restaurants and bars and resort units are now like a ghost town and many of the prestige houses in the residential estate are for sale at prices far less than cost price.

Prior to the cyclone, the resort was a major tourist attraction and employer of people. Now there is little to attract the tourists and little to provide work for the locals. Hopefully, for this very pretty little town, the resort will be sold (it is on the market) and restored to its former glory.

Ray Stoking (Playing With) His Fire

Rob was like a dog with two tails that night as, after dinner, we settled down outside their massive Queensland room beside a magnificent fire that Ray had built.  It took a long time (about two bottles of wine) for the fire to subside. 















 

Ray Marg & me.  No I'm not holding in my stomach, just my new Smartphone.

Ray and Marg have done their bit for the town being major figures in the restoration of the local golf course, bowling green and the Cardwell Country Club, but more of that later.

After leaving Cardwell we went straight to Kurrimine Beach where we parked in Wayne and Joy Smith's back yard. They were on their way back home from the Atherton Tablelands where they had been having a break and they arrived home just after us.

We spent the evening with Wayne & Joy but didn't get much of a chance to catch up with all the gossip as the next morning we had to depart at about 5.00am, leaving the van in their yard, and driving to Cairns to catch our flight to Thursday Island for our next great adventure.