Nights 87 - 102

NIGHT 87  -  THE CALLIOPE RIVER REST AREA.

The Calliope River Rest Area has long been a jewel in the crown of the free camping lifestyle. It’s a big deal.  Several times I’ve seen it gracing the covers of free-camping magazines, always with the river in the foreground, photographed catching the light and reflecting the clouds.  It does photograph beautifully. Behind the river in the middle distance is a steep bank and on the bank, above the river, you can see a line of vans and campers parked peaceful and benign.  Presumably there are scores of happy campers frolicking just out of shot. (I couldn’t resist attempting a photo myself).

 

Normally, or perhaps previously, camping was had on both sides of the river.  The southern bank - the lower, prettier bank - rises just above water level with sandy spits and small deep water pools. It’s now closed for camping.  The river reclaimed the area during the last floods, creating a series of rapids that dragged most of the grass and topsoil away.  It’s now full of holes with few flat places available. There are mounds of topsoil dumped about the place hopefully indicating that the damage will soon be rectified.

The northern bank is the high bank you see in the photos.  It provides only a few steep tracks to access the river.  It houses a bitumen road, a few taps and a toilet block.  There are flat grassed areas and several large shade trees but these areas were also unavailable – recent rains had made them too boggy to drive on.

So, into an area that until recently offered triple the space, this jewel in the crown continues attracting travellers expecting a beautiful, iconic camp site.  Unfortunately the whole rest area currently exists as a single bitumen road with people packed head to tail along both sides. Even so,  some RVers remain undaunted, creating elaborate sites of shadecloth and washing line.  Some people are still prepared to stay for up to a week.  Not us.  We’d had enough after only a night, although we might have felt different had we been parked on the side with a view of the river.  I give The Calliope River Rest Area 2 stars out of 5.  1 star for how it exists now and another for the potential to shimmer again.

NIGHT 88  -  COOEE BAY CAR PARK, YEPPOON.

Sneaky, sneaky.

 We spent most of the day in and around Emu Park, a beautiful place with aquamarine water and spectacular views of tropical islands.  I recommend you go there.  We intended staying the night but, latish in the afternoon, we hit on the idea of spending the next day snorkelling on Great Keppel Island.   It was a great idea but involved rapid organisation, dumping the dog for a day, luck, and relocation to Yeppoon.  Off we went, excited, but with nowhere to stay.

Driving along the main road we saw a sign that said ‘Cooee Bay’.  Really, how could you not go there?   It sounds like a place from ‘Home & Away’, maybe where Alf Stewart grew up.  We took the turn and luck was waiting for us.

 

Directly on the beach, right opposite a park with toilets, nestled among established houses, was a flat ground carpark, friendly and welcoming.  We smiled to each other and relaxed.  We drew the curtains, turned on the lights and created a feast of canned soup and noodles.  Home.

NIGHT 89  -  COOEE BAY CAR PARK, YEPPOON.

We truly didn’t expect to be here again.  Last night worked well but we’re not usually ones to push our luck.  Circumstances led us back though. 

 

We’d had a great day on Great Keppel.  Great, but exhausting.  We hiked many kilometres (I say 6 but Shana says 3. She might be right, but I take lots more little steps) to get to Monkey Beach, which was recommended to us for snorkelling.  (The snorkelling was fun but here I get really serious.  The coral is in a terrible state.  Like everyone, I’ve heard stories of how the reef is dying, probably affected by global warming.  To actually see the affect is heartwrenching.  Most of the coral was bleached ghostly (and ghastly) white.  Most of it was dead, covered in what looked like mould or fungus.  This wasn’t on the outer reef, but in an area I would have thought to be more stable.  It was horrendous).

We were knackered by the time we got back to the ferry at Great Keppel, even more knackered by the time the ferry churned us back to the mainland.  On any other night I’d have been content to go straight to bed, but not on this night.  This night was STATE OF ORIGIN NIGHT.  We’d managed to get the Mozza dog boarded over-night and so we were free to fill ourselves with pub grub and footy (Shana was into it but several levels of excitement below me).  We needed to find a pub to watch the game.

Well, it had to be more of a tavern than a pub.  There is a difference.  To me a tavern sprawls across the landscape and welcomes women and the family unit.  A pub, on the other hand, squats into a crevice and scowls at anyone beyond its immediate circle of friends.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that, when it comes to cheering for the Blues deep in the heart of Queensland, then I want somewhere friendly and safe.  Call me a wuss but I want women and children around me in case my ‘southern enthusiasm’ causes offence.

We knew of just such a tavern.  We’d driven past it going to and from Cooee Bay.  For any occasion other than the State of Origin I’d have considered the place generic and bland, with its white brick walls and its salad bar in the corner of a large open room.  But for tonight it was perfect.

History records that NSW won.  Me and a few others cheered (not Shana.  She is a bloody Qld supporter).  Sad faced losers wearing maroon skulked out and I wavered between silently laughing at them and wondering where we were going to sleep.  Cooee Beach was just up the road.  Great.  Decision made. Now I could properly enjoy loser watching.  We give the Cooee Bay carpark 4 stars out of five.  It’s a lovely carpark. We’d recommend parking your car there anytime (night or day, snicker, snicker).

NIGHTS  90 – 92    ST. LAWRENCE RECREATIONAL RESERVE.

The township of St Lawrence has a police station that only opens on Tuesdays from 8am – 3pm. (Other times by appointment).  Luckily we weren’t at St Lawrence on a Tuesday because, obviously, Tuesday must be law-breaking day.  On Tuesdays, I imagine, local hooligans and criminals enact all the law-breaking they’ve been plotting for the last week.  I imagine them spilling from the pub and commandeering the main street, constantly scrapping on the bowling green and refusing to be quiet in the library.   The police, having had a week to prepare, stand  primed on the verandah of the station, shooting off stern looks and waving their fingers threateningly.  The curtains have been drawn in the school house. The postmistress has taken shelter across the road, shivering in the shed belonging to the Bougainvillea Nursery.  Best stay out of town on law-breaking day.

The Queen’s Birthday weekend had arrived and we needed somewhere to hole up.  To help our Queen celebrate another year caravan parks all over Queensland raised their prices and banned dogs (even corgis).  Same story, different holiday. The St Lawrence Recreation Area, however, cared little about the Queen and remained large, free and available to all.

 The St Lawrence Recreational Reserve is really just a dusty big parking area beside some cattle yards but it has decent amenities and pay-per-use showers.  A dollar doesn’t buy much these days but, in dry and dusty St Lawrence, one dollar will buy you three minutes of steaming hot water.  And 2 x $1, when put in together, gets you enough hot water to glimpse nirvana. (This ‘user pays’ system, which is a cornerstone of modern capitalist ideology, pays little heed to environmental concerns, or at least  in my experience.  If I pay for nine minutes of hot water, as I did one night after being attacked by invisible things that made me itch all over, then the money paid absolves me from any guilt about wasted water.  I’ve paid my three dollars so bugger off.  What I do after that in the privacy of my own shower cubicle, and how long I do it for, is no-ones business but mine.  I’ve purchased that right.  Why should I care if the hot water runs out?

 p.s. -   I think carbon credits are meant to work the same way – “I’ve paid the bucks and bought the credits so piss off, I’ll consume as much as I want and spew forth as much pollutant as required.  Leave me alone.  I’ve followed the rules haven’t I?   It’s not my fault if the rules are ill-conceived and meaningless”.)

 

We stayed at St Lawrence for three nights.  It overlooked wetlands which attracted many water birds and drew Shana and her bird book out for an afternoon of twitching.  We watched the big open sky  cast orange and pink light across the clouds at sunset.  It wasn’t an exciting four days, but Shana and I don’t seek much excitement.  We are quite insular really.  Why, when there’s a gathering of folk having ‘fivesies’, and four grandparent aged people are leading the group in singing ‘Home Among the Gum Trees’, complete with all the actions, then, instead of wanting to join in on the ‘good times’, Shana and I tend to roll our eyes and continue on with whatever we were doing, staying as far away as possible.  I guess we are not natural ‘joiners’.  We give St Lawrence 3 stars out of 5.  The hot water was hot, the toilets inoffensive and the wetlands sufficiently swampy.  However, both of us being primary school teachers, we’d be ecstatic to never hear ‘Home Among the Gumtrees’ ever again.

NIGHT  93  -  A GRAVEL PIT, MACKAY.

We wanted to go see Finch Hatton Gorge, which I remembered as a series of waterfalls and deep water pools.  I lived at Mackay for a while and used to escape to Finch Hatton Gorge whenever I was feeling overwhelmed.  If you like bushland and waterfalls then it’s a place that soothes and heals.  I wanted to go back and visit it as I would an old friend.

Finch Hatton showground is, like Bellingen, open to campers every day of the year except for the week leading up to the local show.  That was the week we arrived.  A sign on the gate announced the showgrounds closed.  Then it started to rain.  Truly.

We’d travelled a long way inland (relatively, for us at least) to go see the gorge so off we went anyway, in the rain, with nowhere organised for us to stay.  We only went to the bottom pool and we didn’t swim.  It was too cold and my old friend seemed a bit grumpy.  It was still nice to catch up though.  I still felt wistful in the rain.

We left, heading back towards Mackay as the sun readied for bed.  Near Mackay we drove past a flat area on the side of the road, stockpiled with mounds of gravel.  After a quick discussion we agreed that, if the ‘bago really does only require flat ground for us to be comfy, then we had found some.  We turned around and nestled in between some piles, hoping that no-one required gravel early in the morning.

 

  We give the gravel pit ½ a star out of five.  Even for a gravel pit it was a bit grungy and big noisy trucks shunted past all through the night.

NIGHT 94  -  GUTHALUNGRA REST STOP (NOT BOWEN).

It was a day of reminiscing.  I detoured us all to a place called Laguana Quays, where I once worked as a scaffolder.  Laguana Quays was to be a golfing resort – a blend of state of the art golf courses mixed with tropical resort styled living.  I helped build several accommodation blocks, a clubhouse and a marina in the six months I worked there.  It opened to great fanfare and was highly regarded.

We drove into Laguana Quays and immediately drove past a building overtaken by vines.  As we drove further we passed golf courses left untended for years, wallabies colonising the fairways; we passed signs that had fallen to the ground like over-ripe apples, their arrows pointing wherever they liked; and we passed red tiled roofs that had fallen into the buildings, leaving holes gaping and open to the weather.  It was eerie to see what was once so opulent now lying in disrepair.  Eerie and shameful really.  Perfectly good housing had been left to rot away.  Good on us first world (I say sarcastically), if it doesn’t reap a profit then let’s let it fall apart rather than use it for any societal good.  I’m sure it could have been utilised by some section of society.  Apparently it only lasted ten years or so before it was abandoned.

We drove away from Laguana Quays saddened and headed for Airlie Beach, a place I don’t like aesthetically but it was where I lived while working at Laguana.  More reminiscing.  Airlie had gotten bigger, more gaudy, seeking even greater attention for itself.  We stopped and went to the markets.  We had lunch on the beach.  And we drove away thankful that we were just passing through.  We intending spending the night at Bowen.

I really like Bowen.  It has a few lovely beaches but I’m especially fond of Horseshoe Bay.  We got there in the afternoon and it was sunny with little wind.  We hit the water and played around, cooling down and being silly.  There were several ‘backpacker vans’ in the carpark and young men with European accents were playing soccer on the beach or attempting to walk along a rope strung between two trees. A man and a woman lay entwined on the sand, young and oblivious. It was everything you could want a tropical afternoon to be.  There were signs everywhere warning against camping there though.  Signs that warned of on the spot fines.  We weren’t concerned.  We’d sneaky camped before.  We were sure we’d find somewhere nearby.

And we did.  It was only two bays over from Horseshoe and there were no signs anywhere warning against camping.  The scenery was beautiful.  There was a toilet nearby and a tap beside us.  We got the weber out and cooked a meal and ate it as the sun went down.  We then climbed into the van and settled down to watch ‘The Voice’. 

 

Not long later there came a knocking at the door (a rapping at my chamber door).

It was dark and about 8:30pm.  A guy dressed in a hi-vis shirt with a council logo handed us a warning card and told us to leave.  I said there was no sign and he said it had been ripped down and that we’d be fined if we were still there in the morning.  Bummer.  I guess it had to happen sometime.  We waited until ‘The Voice’ ended and then packed up and hightailed it outta town.  Our ‘Camps Australia’  book informed us that Guthalungra Rest Stop was about 50kms away.  Luckily there were a few vacant spaces available when we arrived.  We pulled in close to midnight and, trying to make as little noise as possible, we went to bed.  I don’t give the Guthalungra Rest Area a score.  It could be 5/5 because it welcomed us in the middle of the night but, realistically, we saw little of it.  We were up and out of there early the next morning.  Glad it was there though.

 

NIGHT 95  -  HOME HILL COMFORT STOP.

Home Hill is a satellite suburb of Ayr and has been enduring economic hardship.  Not long ago, apparently, most of the shops in the main street were closed.  I guess the local council debated various ways to revitalise the town.  Someone realised that thousands of tourists in RVs travelled through the town each year and surmised that they’d have spare dollars to spend.  What happened next was quite innovative I reckon.

Running parallel to the main street, but one street over, languished a disused railway station.  This was turned into an information centre.  Opposite the station three new brick buildings were constructed, each catering directly to the travelling RVer.  The town built a toilet and shower block, offering free hot showers any time of the day or night.  Next to it they built an open kitchen providing sinks and power points and dining tables.  The last building was a coin-operated laundry.  It was a great idea that appears to be re-invigorating the town.  When we were there the café was doing a roaring trade, the supermarket was busy and well stocked and the local pubs had been refurbished and were offering cheap counter meals and extended ‘happy hours’.  Little trinket and gift shops are opening up and the pet shop keeps running out of doggy treats.

 

It is a bizarre place to stay though.  The amenities buildings supplied have the air of a caravan park but everything happens along two edges of a busy suburban street.  It’s not uncommon to see someone dodging through the traffic in a dressing gown, wet hair wrapped in a towel; or someone carrying a plate full of food across the road to their car.  The personal is still very public in a caravan park, but at least they provide an over-riding sense of separation from the general public.  Not so at the Home Hill Rest Area.  It’s a great idea though.  There should be more of it.  I give the Home Hill Rest Stop 3 ½ stars out of 5.  It is a demonstration of innovative thinking.  It does have problems though.  Goods trains still rattle by throughout the night and sometimes hoons drive down the street tooting their horns and yelling, thinking it hilarious to wake people up I guess.

NIGHT  96  -  BLUEWATER REST AREA, TOWNSVILLE

Townsville came as a pleasant surprise to us.  The place is beautiful, especially around The Strand and Flinders Street East.  We’d been led to believe that it was an unpleasant place, and maybe the ‘burbs are, but the town and the water front are clean and spectacular.  But there were no dog friendly parks nearby so we only stayed for the day.  We were spending the night at Bluewater Rest Area – one of four free camping areas provided by the Townsville council, all of which are in picturesque surroundings.  Good on you Townsville.

 

We didn’t actually stay at the Bluewater Rest Area though.  It was full when we got there, all available space being used.  Having learnt nothing from our experience in Bowen, we found a spot across the park, opposite the designated free camp zone.  We parked behind a no camping sign, comforted by the fact that three other travellers were doing likewise.  It was on the edge of where the schoolbus picked up the local kids to take them to Townsville.  It felt wrong to be there.  We vowed to be up and out of there by 7am (and we were).  I give the Bluewater Rest Area one star out of five.  It looked okay from across the park.

A BIG DECISION

Being on the road forces you to make decisions, much more so than when your abode is fixed.  Everything is constantly in flux.  For example, the environment takes on a crucial role in forcing decisions to be made, and it limits the options available.  A calm and warm night allows you to do pretty much anything you want, pretty much anywhere you want to do it.  On a calm, warm evening you can BBQ outside, maybe using a council barbie beside a beach, perhaps set up the butane burner beside it, sit in the shade, sit in the sun, etc.  The main decision to be made is whether you lather yourself with insect repellent or don a long sleeved cotton shirt and lightweight trousers.  Heavy winds present less options.  Heavy winds are unpleasant all round as they attempt to rip the awning down or fold it in on itself.  They sweep sand and dust up into the air making it hard to breathe.  Strong winds make outdoor cooking impossible, weakening the flame so that the barbie never heats up.  Rain is the worst.  You get wet, your gear gets wet, the ‘bago floor becomes smeared with clumps of mud.  When rain and strong winds arrive together …you get the point.  When shopping, grocery buying decisions must consider a probable ratio of indoor to outdoor cooking and the subsequent requirements.  Etc, etc. (Technically everything could be cooked inside.  Bloody hell, the ‘bago has a microwave, a griller, an oven and three hot plates.  However, cooking creates smells and many smells linger.  Meat and fish for example.  So, just as you wouldn’t cook meat or fish in your bedroom, we try not to do it in the ‘bago.  It just creates a more pleasant inside environment over time when some things are cooked outdoors.)

Yep, life on the road is about decisions.  Sure, you always have options, but those options need to be continually assessed against one another with a clear victor needed.  Otherwise confusion reigns and inaction rules.  We play scissors, paper, rock quite a bit.

At Townsville we had a massive decision to make.  We had to decide whether to turn left or continue on straight ahead.

In other words, did we head inland turning left along the Flinders Highway enroute to Darwin, or did we continue straight ahead, through town and on up to Cairns and the Daintree?  The second option sounded fantastic at first.  We both loved the idea of spending time in the rainforest.  There was a problem of logistics though; a problem of time and a problem of repetition.

In a vehicle as cumbersome as the ‘bago, however far north we travelled from Townsville on Highway 1, we had to travel back along Highway 1 for the same distance.  There are alternate roads that go from Cairns to Mt Isa but they can be sketchy.  If we had a 4WD then there’d be no worries, but we don’t.  We have a 5 tonne lumbering house-bus that steers like a rock and shakes and jars when traversing even the lowest of shopping centre speed humps.  To get to Darwin we must turn off from Townsville.  That’s the reality.

Enter logic.  We’d both already been to Cairns and I’d been to the Daintree briefly before.  Shana wanted to see the Daintree but we reasoned Kakadu and Mataranka and The Kimberleys, all of which are definite destinations, would offer similar experiences (sort of). But it wasn’t only the repetition of distance that concerned us, there was a time factor as well.

We think we are just ahead of the main body of RVers heading north for the winter, or so we have been told.  The oncoming flood is still just a strong trickle at the moment.  When the season is at its absolute peak everywhere becomes crowded and claustrophobic.  We don’t take well to crowds.  So far we’ve had little trouble finding space where we wanted to be.  That’s the way we’d like it to stay.  Maybe we’ll regret it later but, as I say, decisions have to be made.

Having said all this we didn’t ‘turn left’ at Townsville.  Although happy(ish) to delete the Daintree from our itinerary, Shana really, really (really) wanted to go to Mission Beach – about halfway between Townsville and Cairns.  Fair enough.  Another decision made.  Off we went.

NIGHTS 97 – 100  -  MISSION BEACH CARAVAN PARK.

Shana, the queen of the internet, had done her research again.  At Mission Beach there are two caravan parks beside each other, a road running between them.  Directly fronting the beach is the council run caravan park.  Its amenities are crusty and old and it costs $20 per night.  It doesn’t take bookings.  Behind it, across the road, is a privately owned caravan park.  It is spacious and new and beautifully laid out at $42 per night.

We’d recently parked in a gravel pit and frequently used dodgy public toilets on the side of the road so opulence was not a requirement for us.  We crossed our fingers hoping for a space in the council run park.

We scored the last space available.  Yay!  We were shoved in on an odd angle closer to a family of four than we’d have chosen ourselves, but happy to be there.

Mission Beach is a tropical island on the mainland.  The beach is fringed with Cocos palms which curve gently towards the sun.  The sand is white and wide and leads to water warm enough to play around in during winter.  The town has as many restaurant/bars as it does other shops combined.  The pace of life is gentle and slow. 

 

We stayed for four nights.  We enjoyed it but we must say that the park had a surprising air of unfriendliness about it.  We’ve discussed it, Shana and I, and we can’t pinpoint anything in particular, but we didn’t feel as relaxed and comfortable there as we had in most other places.  Maybe it was our proximity to the family next door.  We could certainly hear everything they were doing so they must have been able to hear us.  The park emptied and filled around us several times so we could have moved.  We didn’t though.  We give Mission Beach Caravan Park 2 out of 5 (plus 2 for location). They did squish people in but we learned that actual eavesdropping is more entertaining than reality TV.  We also celebrated 100 nights on the road while there.

NIGHT  101  -  BLUEWATER REST AREA, TOWNSVILLE.

It wasn’t our intention to be here again.  We knew we had to retrace our steps along the same road but we hadn’t intended returning to exactly the same place.  We had our hearts set on a place called Balgal Beach.  It read wonderfully on the net and we were looking forward to it.

Balgal Beach met all expectations.  It was majestic – a white sand beach meeting a flowing river mouth with the free camping area positioned on the headland between them.  The area was tiny and completely full.  Ridiculously full actually.  Imagine a wall of bricks held together by mortar, then replace the bricks in the image with large campervans and caravans, now replace the mortar with ‘backpacker vans’ and tents.  Between them all possible space had been taken.

Bluewater was only 10kms away so, sadly, back there we went.  This time we camped in the appropriate area and were pleasantly surprised by Bluewater Creek.  It flowed cool and fresh and had no crocodile warnings attached.  I splashed around in it for a while, keeping Morrissey near in case a set of nostrils and eyes slunk along the river towards me. (To save Morrissey of course, not to throw him toward any croc while I made my escape).   ( I think.)   This time we give Bluewater Rest Area 2 ½ out of 5.  It’s a much better place when used as authorised.

NIGHT 102  -  CORAL COAST CARAVAN PARK, TOWNSVILLE

I was becoming excited.  I’d never been ‘out west’ before and I’d long looked forward to driving through ‘the outback’.  We needed to do a few things in town before we left, stocking up on all the essentials – food, water, gas, grog, 2 kinds of coke.  We decided to stay a night on the fringes of town, close to all the mega-shopping centres and homemaker warehouses.  And close to the RAAF base as it turned out.

Did you know that helicopters are nocturnal?  I had no idea.  During the day, when the sun shone hot and bright, we never spotted a single helicopter.  To be honest, if it wasn’t for the signs pointing to the RAAF base, we wouldn’t have even known we’d entered their ecosystem.  They started appearing at dusk.  We heard the first one take off while we were out ‘webering’ our sausages.  It was very noisy but, like bats, a single one is tolerable.  It’s a whole colony that can drive you mad.

Well the whole colony were out that night.  We could hear them filling the sky, a large group, flying over us and around, noise alternating between loud and FUCKING LOUD, the TV working sometimes but mostly not.

There’s nothing we could do and culling is not the answer.

We went to bed about 10pm and they were still there.  Surely they didn’t do this every night.  There was residential housing nearby.  Nobody could endure it every night.  Maybe it was just a case of bad timing on our part.  Maybe we’d witnessed a rare occurrence; chanced upon something like a seasonal mating ritual.  We’ll never know.  They were gone again in the morning.  We give the Coral Coast Caravan Park 1 star out of 5.  Hadn’t they heard of anti-aircraft guns.

 

This is the last coastal entry for a while.  From here it’s the wide brown land for me.