Well, I probably shouldn’t have waited two weeks in between blogs because we had some terrific experiences across the past 2 weeks that resulted in LOTS of photos! We visited 3 different islands – just love having so many beautiful islands around, for real, not just in our dreams! Yes, I know, it’s stream not dream, but I am claiming artistic license 🙂 So grab an extra large coffee and hunker down, here we go…
A few new birds to report on! While we were on Great Keppel Island, we saw an osprey:
And along one of the beaches in Yeppoon, we finally saw pelicans!
Also saw pelicans down in Hervey Bay, along with cormorants and tufted terns (they were referred to as tufted terns, but that doesn’t seem to be a bird species name, thinking maybe a great crested tern):
In Tannum Sands, we saw these blue-winged kookaburras, a close relative of the laughing kookaburras we usually see.
Oh, before I forget, Hugh won another 2nd place prize for his ornaments! This time at the Rockhampton Show:
The Yeppoon show had the better ROI though – $15 for 2nd place vs only $5 at the Rocky Show. Note to self.
OK, moving onto the topic of islands. Thursday June 13 was a public holiday for anyone working in Rockhampton so Kevin and Joanne took us and Rob and Barb out for a sail to Great Keppel Island. It was a bit chilly when we left around 8am:
But when we arrived at Great Keppel, I was able to change into shorts. I had never actually stepped foot onto Keppel Island before – Kevin and Jo had taken us out there a couple times, but both times we stayed on the boat and swam and snorkeled from there. Hugh had gone out with Melbourne Rob a year ago and had lunch at the restaurant on the island. Kevin is always looking out for me and didn’t want the non-retiree in the house to be short-changed so he made sure that I also got to see some of the island! We took the tender to shore and Kevin took us for a hike along one of the paths to the old homestead on the island:
Those with a keen eye will notice that Lizzy Leeke had more than one husband – I felt an instant kinship! They used to have sheep and goats on the homestead and some wild goats remain to this day. Hard to see in this photo so I’ve circled where 2 happened to be standing:
You could see them better from the outhouse behind the old house. I of course can’t pass up any opportunity for bathroom humour:
When we took the tender back to Kevin and Jo’s cat, I was able to get a nice photo of her (Vivacious is her name):
If you look closely, you can see Rob, Barb, and Joanne huddling on the front – they learned later they should have sat at the back as it was more protected from the chilly wind! But the day did warm up and after lunch on the boat and some card games, we did go for a dip in the water. I say dip because it didn’t last long – man, the water was cold! This coming from a gal who has swum in Lake Superior early in the season. I am truly turning into a wuss for cold temperatures!
Got a nice photo of Rob and Barb on the way home into the sunset:
When we got back to Kevin and Jo’s, a game of Corn Hole broke out, as tends to happen. Kevin and Jo came in first place. Due to a technicality (i.e., following the rules), Rob and Barb edged ahead of Hugh and me for second place. Don’t worry, there will be a re-match!
Another momentous event happened that week – Young Rob became Not-So-Young Rob! He turned 50 so we had a surprise celebration for him at the yacht club:
There was actually another 50th birthday party happening at the same time and all the gals were dressed in pink. If only we’d known, could have had more fun with Not-So-Young Rob!
Back in Stoney Creek, June was when we had the most spectacular sunsets – those of you on Facebook will have seen me sharing some in the Memories that come up. Really haven’t seen better ones anywhere in the world. But I took this from the yacht club the night we celebrated Rob’s birthday:
Having all the masts silhouetted against the sunset made for a pretty video. And you can hear the band playing Cocaine in the background :). Pretty good arvo at the yacht club! (arvo = afternoon)
This past week I took a few days off and we went back to Hervey (pronounced Harvey) Bay in order to visit K’gari (pronounced “gahree”), formerly called Fraser Island. If anyone comes over to visit, K’gari is worth seeing! Here is a map to show you where things are:
We live in Yeppoon at the top and Hervey Bay is about a 5-hour drive south of us. I’ve also circled Tannum Sands/Boyne Island, where we stayed on the way back, which is about 2 hours from Yeppoon.
We arrived in Hervey Bay on Tuesday afternoon and went down to the pier. As we were walking along it and it was taking forever to get to the end, we wondered how long it was. Well, when it was originally built in 1917, it was over a kilometre long!
Now it’s only 880 metres, but still, that’s one heck of a long pier! Seems to be a favourite spot for fishers:
Another attempt at a sunset photo coming back from our walk along the pier:
And I liked this statue of a fish with his fin around a boy:
When we got back to where we’d parked the car, we saw this:
I swear this company must have offices in every country on the planet, I’ve seen them almost everywhere I’ve traveled!
The next day was when we went to K’gari. It was FREEZING cold at 6:30am that morning:
By far the coldest it’s been since we moved here. Note to self, in the winter, travel NORTH for vacations, not south!
While we were waiting for the ferry to K’gari, we saw one of these boats and we had just seen one on the way to Great Keppel the week before. They have a drawbridge-style loading ramp on the front:
Got this pretty video of the sun sparkling on the water on the way across to K’gari:
We had a fabulous tour guide, Alyssa, to take us around the island in a specially designed bus. K’gari is the world’s largest sand island – no dirt, all sand! Yet it hosts an incredible diversity of flora and fauna, including a subtropical rainforest. People do take their SUVs over but there is no way in hell I would ever do that – the ruts in the sand were pretty extreme and it wouldn’t be hard to get stuck. We actually did see one SUV get stuck just coming off the beach and those ruts were nothing compared to the ones on the tracks going across the island.
K’gari is amazing. There is way too much to write here so I’ll just link you to this site and this site, which give a bit of an overview. It’s only a 30-40 min ferry ride from the mainland, but has so many unique features and you just wonder how did things evolve such that some trees only exist there and not on the mainland.
We first drove across to the east side of the island. This is where there is a sand highway running the length of the island. It was funny seeing speed limit signs on the beach:
There is a large dingo population on the island. We saw a few while driving along the sand highway, including one enjoying a snack of beached manta ray:
The tour guide emphasised multiple times that no one should ever walk alone on the island and if you have kids, you must keep them literally within arms’ length. A toddler was bitten just two weeks ago and apparently the dingo’s jaw is incredibly strong. The resorts on the island have electrified fences to keep the dingoes out.
There was a controlled burn happening in the bush near this beach:
We thought we were in for a bad bushfire season last year and I was going to tell you about controlled burns then, but we ended up not having much of a fire season after all. But every year they prepare for them by doing controlled burns to reduce the volume of fuel available to spread fires. We can often see smoke in the distance around Yeppoon, but this was the closest we’ve been to a controlled burn. They have a fire truck at the ready. When we first drove by, the wind was blowing the fire toward the beach as planned, so it would naturally sputter out when it hit the sand. But when we were coming back, the wind had shifted and the fire was heading back inland. Presumably that’s when the fire truck would come in handy.
Whale watching is a big tourist attraction between Hervey Bay and K’gari – 30,000 whales hang out here in the winter. It usually starts mid-July but the whales have arrived early! I couldn’t get over what we could see from the beach – tail slaps, fin rolls, you name it, just incredible! There was an optional excursion to take a 15-min flight. We hummed and hawed, not sure if it would be worth the $100 per person price tag. A few people on our bus decided to do it and when they came back, they said it was worth every penny, especially to fly above the whales playing in the water. Later, the plane was taking a couple up from the other bus tour and our tour guide asked if anyone on our bus wanted to tag along – we decided to do it! It was a tiny plane:
It was a shockingly smooth take off and landing on the beach! Apparently there are only 2 sand landing strips in the world, the other one being in Scotland. We definitely recommend doing the flight if you’re here when the whales are – the water is so clear, you can see them even when they’re under the surface! Between the whales moving and the plane turning, none of the pictures turned out, which is so disappointing because it was a sight to behold. But I did get this shot of the beach anyway:
And this is us with our pilot:
Here you can see the plane sharing the sand highway with a train of SUVs:
Don’t worry, they have ground crew to mark off where the plane is taking off and landing 🙂
The lucky part is – we didn’t have to pay! I had the credit card in my hand as we were getting the safety briefing before getting on the plane but the crew told us to just get on board. And then at the end of the flight when we were chatting with the crew, Hugh tried to hand the credit card to one of the guys and again they refused and told us we could just head back to our tour bus. I don’t know if they choose random lucky people from time to time or what, but wow, what a pleasant surprise!
There is a shipwreck on this beach too:
It’s the Mehino and has an interesting history.
One of our stops was at a boardwalk in the rainforest section of the island. I think I previously mentioned these plants that grow on the side of trees but I didn’t know what they were called. The ones we’ve seen around here and in Brisbane were quite small, but the ones on K’gari were enormous:
They are called staghorn and elkhorn ferns. Very cool!
There is an aquifer that supplies the island with fresh water. It is filtered and served at the restaurant we had lunch at and it was so incredibly delicious. It’s also incredibly clear. Check out this photo in the rainforest:
You’re probably having the same initial reaction as we did – a strip of sand surrounded by trees. Except it’s a river and you just can’t see the water because it’s so clear! If you look at the bottom right of the photo, you can see some ripples in that section. But everywhere that looks like sand is actually covered in water. And it’s silent – there is no babbling sound at all.
Another stop was at Lake McKenzie – click here to learn about what makes the water here special. We both brought our swimmers (Aussie for swimsuits) but as you will have seen in the various photos above, it never got really warm throughout the day – I was wearing a t-shirt plus a long-sleeved sunshirt plus a fall jacket most of the day and Hugh had his puffer jacket on. When we got to Lake McKenzie, it was after 3pm and the sun was low in the sky (this week was the winter solstice, shortest day of the year). I therefore elected to not go for a dip, but Hugh, who’s gone into the Atlantic Ocean in North Carolina at New Year’s, was determined to do so. So here he is after changing into his swimmers before heading to the lake – keeping his puffer jacket on to stay warm 🙂
And here he is just before he dove in:
Will have to go back when it’s warmer so I can go for a swim!
We took the ferry back to the mainland as the sun was setting:
The dark streak in the sky is smoke from the controlled burns in the area.
The next morning Hugh hit some golf balls while I did a bit of work for a couple hours, then we headed north. We stopped at a restaurant outside Childers that one of our friends had told us about – Mollydookers. It’s owned by a Canadian (from south of London) who married an Aussie and they serve some Canadian classics!
The butter tarts were nowhere near as good as Barb’s. We didn’t order a Caesar – slim chance of it being better than the ones Rob makes. The nanaimo bar wasn’t bad. The pierogies were fabulous (have put in a request for Hugh to learn how to make these). The poutine were pretty good but made with frozen fries again. We were chatting with the owner and asked about the lack of fresh cut fries everywhere. He said he used to use them but apparently potato prices fluctuate between $0.70 and $2.40 per kg, making it a difficult menu item to price, plus they tend to get shipped full of dirt, so he’s paying $2.40/kg for dirt that he then has to spend ages scrubbing off. Fair enough, but I really miss fresh cut fries – especially for poutine!
We finished our mini-holiday in Tannum Sands / Boyne Island. We weren’t expecting much because it’s right next to Gladstone, which is a major industrial port (coal, gas, alumina). But it was a beautiful little town! We had dinner at the surf lifesaving club because it had a patio overlooking the beach:
It was fun watching all the freighters – reminded us of our place in Stoney Creek, watching the lakers come and go from the industrial port in Hamilton. The beaches were pretty:
There were amazing parks along the beach that we thought were new but they’ve been there for over 20 years – they’re just incredibly well maintained. I think the big industries in Gladstone pour money into the town to keep it looking pretty. They had a couple fun sculptures made out of discarded industrial parts:
Even the speed bumps were artistic – turtles crossing the road:
Two more photos and then you can get on with your day. This is the warning sign at the beach in Tannum Sands:
How many dangers can you get in one place!
And then we saw this combination of signs in Raglan, just outside of Rockhampton on the drive home:
I’m sure it’s not an intentional juxtaposition, but it certainly cracked me up!
OK that’s all for now, folks – will try to keep it shorter next time!