Pirate Territory - Tropical Islands & Rum!

We were up early for our trip out to Lady Musgrave Island, it was a 8.30 departure from Seventeen Seventy (1770), the only port around here, which is situated on Round Hill Creek.  The trip out was not that eventful except for Chantal bringing up her breakfast, very unusual as normally she is the only one that doesn’t suffer any form of motion sickness! Oh, we also saw a humpback whale breaching a number of times – they are one big animal. Lady Musgrave Island is unique on the barrier reef in that is a natural lagoon, i.e. has a natural entrance channel. Most other island lagoon entrances have needed the help of a couple of tonnes on dynamite to make them navigable. Once we were moored on the pontoon we didn’t waste any time getting into wetsuits and snorkelling gear and jumping in for a looksee. The water was calmer than the day we spent off Cairns but the water was considerably cooler. Also, this far south there aren’t any soft corals, only hard corals, which meant we came across different fish and corals. Soon after we went on a guided tour of the island which you can camp on if you book far enough ahead. Lachlan got to hold a sea cucumber, which was a lot softer than he thought it would be – can’t imagine eating them though! We fitted in lunch and a semi-submersible ride before hitting the water for another long snorkel. This time I chucked on my wetsuit top under theirs to keep myself a little warmer. Good patches of clear sky in the arvo ensured the colour of the coral was highlighted when snorkelling. Chantal got a little adventurous and did some dives, chasing some of the smaller fish. Just before we got out of the water they fed the fish, which was exciting after fish darting at great speed all around us. The ride back was a bit rougher, but that wasn’t an issue for me as I managed to nod off for half an hour or so. It was my turn to cook dinner, so it was pizzas all round from the only local takeaway food joint.

Leaving Agnes Water we drove south down a 4wd track that hugged the coastline and for a good part went through Deepwater NP. It was a picturesque sandy track most of the way and there were some nice camp spots in Deepwater NP itself. We ended up at Rules Beach which was nothing more than a couple of old houses with a beach access ramp next door. I suspect that this part of the coast will become more attractive to real estate agents in the near future. From there we took a secondary road closer to the coast going through Rosedale and ending up at Bundaberg. Our campsite for the night was a caravan park at Bargara, which was 12km out from Bundy right on the beach. They had a great non-powered camping area and we were surprised how quiet it was considering it was the start of the school holidays.

It started raining overnight and continued for most of the day, to be more accurate it pissed down all day. Lucky we had some indoor attractions on the “to do” list. First was “The Bundaberg Barrel” which is the tourist bit of the Bundy Ginger Beer Factory. We took in their info display and finished off with a taste test. Next on the list was the Bundaberg Rum Distillery, an Aussie icon. The reason we didn’t go here first was that we thought 9am was a little too early to be sampling some of Bundy’s finest rum! We had an informative tour around the distillery, some parts of it out in the open in the pouring rain. Finally we ended up at the bar, warming ourselves up with the complimentary samples. With a few souvenirs in tow we took the easy option and headed to the big M for lunch, bumping into a family we’d met at Agnes – funny how all kids want the same thing for lunch! The arvo was spent with Lachlan getting his noggin shaved (well cut) and checking out the Cooperage, a little business that makes port barrels as well as the occasional 75,000 litre vat at the distillery itself! The owner did his apprenticeship at the distillery before going out by himself. As we tucked ourselves into bed the rain was still quite steady.

We woke to light rain, but pleasingly it cleared and we had patches of sunshine which meant we packed up with everything virtually dry. Leaving we took a bit of a detour down to Elliot Heads, a quiet little beachside town with a nice caravan park, much what I suspect Bargara would have been 20 years or so ago. We took more back roads through sugar cane territory, many of them were underwater which made the drive slow but certainly interesting. We passed through Childers and finally got to Maryborough about midday.  We got a few supplies there and then headed straight to Freshwater Campground which is in Great Sandy NP. The 16km drive in was spectacular going through big sections of rainforest (similar to Fraser Is as my memory recalls) – the track was sandy all the way but due to the recent rain it was quite firm, making it an easy drive with the trailer. Camp was setup quickly, lunch scoffed down and then we headed to the beach. Later Lachlan and I went back and chucked the lines in but with no luck. This part of Great Sandy NP is only a couple of hundred kms north of Brisbane and we were really surprised the campground was less than half full, especially considering it’s school holidays and the good facilities it offers. With awesome beaches, fishing, swimming, beach driving etc if this was near Melbourne it would have been loved to death by now.

Next morning was a lazy one. Once we finally got ourselves sorted we headed off and walked up to Freshwater Lake and as the name suggests contained fresh water, though until recently apparently it had dried up. After lunch we jumped into the car and headed 10km north up Teewah Beach to Double Island Point, which has an operational lighthouse perched on top. After a steep walk up to the lighthouse we were treated to four humpback whales frolicking just off the point, as well as a pod of dolphins and a couple of rays (Mantas we think). Back at the car we cut across the headland and jumped back onto Rainbow beach. From here all the way to Rainbow Beach the township is lined with tall cliffs of coloured sands, mostly of reddish/orange hues. With RB there is far less room for error with picking your tides as the high tide comes right up to the bottom of the cliff! There was one outcrop of rocks just before you get to the township and with the tide already well up we had to drive through the wash from the incoming waves to get around them. From the top of the beach at RB you could see across to Fraser Island – we would have loved to go there but with school holidays it would have been crazy over there. After some shopping and a coffee we headed back to camp via the inland route. Dinner that night to the kids delight was tuna dish!

Today we packed up, on the drive out stopping and doing a nice little walk through rainforest to Poona Lake, a pristine sand lake. Once back on the black stuff it was straight through to Gympie, a slight detour off the main hwy. Lachlan wanted to check out the KFC there as apparently it’s the only one that has one of the original rotating buckets! It was brought back to life after Hamish and Andy from Fox FM campaigned to get it spinning again, even flying up there to see it when it started working again. We were disappointed as it wasn’t spinning, apparently it broke down, the 2^nd time since it was given a new lease of life. We still ended up having lunch there and getting a few shots of the stationary bucket, can’t tell if it’s moving or not with a still camera! Once back on the road we made another diversion, to Yandina to check out the Buderim Ginger Factory, which apart from tours sold a heap of stuff related to ginger as well as a heap of other exciting crafty stuff! Louise scored some fudge so she came away a happy lass. We finally jumped off the main hwy and headed to Landsborough, staying in a c-park out of town with great views right to the coast, Coloundra I guess. We’ll use this as a base, heading down to Australia Zoo tomorrow and some other day trips around the area after that.