Molongle Creek, Bowen and a very strange free camp

Our next stop was a place called Molongle Creek.  The caravan park there had good reviews and supposedly great fishing.  We needed somewhere to stop overnight and it looked like a perfect fit.

The park is next to a boat ramp with a man-made channel running out to the nearby sea.  It’s also next to a bunch of mangroves which we eyed dubiously, both remarking about their proximity and usual association with biting insects. 

Walking down to the ocean.

We set up camp and Lou went for a short walk along the bank to go fishing.  She didn’t have any luck, and in the process of catching no fish, slipped down an embankment, landed hard on her arse, got covered in prickles and cracked the face of her phone, which had been in her back pocket.  The only positive about it was that there were no witnesses.

Crap fishing and nasty prickles. But a great sunset to fall over by.

The next morning as we packed up the van, we realised that we were both covered in sandfly bites.  Thankfully Ben was not bitten.  We had loads of the hard, blistery bites that signify sandfly, not mozzie and Lou had a dozen just on her neck – they drove us mad for days and days.

We need calamine lotion! Stat!

Bowen

Bowen was a surprisingly lovely town that we could easily have stayed in longer.  The lovely lady at the Big Mango info centre recommended a great fish and chip shop at the wharf and directed us to Horseshoe Bay for good snorkeling.  We realised that hiring stinger suits every time we wanted to swim was going to be very expensive so we bought our own and headed out for a swim.

Ben with Blake's undies at the smaller of Bowen's two Big Mangoes.

The story of Mangogate!

Fish bin!

Hanging out at Horseshoe Bay before going for a swim.

Ross, Barb and Daniel had changed their plans to go inland and turned up in Bowen too!  They met us at the beach and we all decided to travel down to Airlie Beach together.

The caravan parks in Bowen were ridiculously expensive, especially as it was evening and we were planning to leave early the next morning so we decided to drive a bit out of town to a free camp that had 4 stars in the app we use (WikiCamps). 

We arrived at the camp site to find that it is like a hippy commune.  The app said it had power and water (neither of which we really need but it was super hot so being able to use the aircon would have been nice) but the area for vans was just a paddock with broken glass strewn through it.  There was a highway on one side and a train line on the other – it was really noisy.  The section for tent campers was next to a shack where the owner lived and it had a fire pit, tin shed toilet and farm enclosure.  The backpackers love it because they all sit around the fire and smoke dope all evening (there is a huge plant growing there to supply them).  No wonder they don't notice the traffic and rumbling trains.

What kind of plant is that Mummy?

On the positive side, the owner's sow had just given birth and Ben and Daniel were invited to come over to the pen to see the piglets, which they loved.   

Very cute piglets.

Townsville and Magnetic Island

Townsville was a great chance to take some time out from moving around and just stay in one place for a week or so.

Jenny wanted to do her advanced open water scuba course and we were waiting for some mail to arrive, so we set up camp at the Big 4 caravan park which had 2 water slides, a splash park, mini golf and a jumping pillow.  Needless to say, Ben was very pleased.  These are our Townsville highlights…

Happy Halloween!

With no encouragement from us, Ben was super excited about Halloween.  He remembers going trick or treating last year along the local shopping strip (they go all out) and was very keen to dress up and do it again this year.  I asked at the caravan park and they said that nothing was planned so we used Google to find what seemed to be the only Halloween event in Townsville (well, 45 mins out of town) and planned to go there on the Saturday night.  Luckily, due to an influx of kids during the week the caravan park decided that they would decorate the park and put on a Halloween themed movie night, which saved us a long drive.

We decorated the van and upgraded Ben’s cardboard armour to be a zombie knight costume. 

Zombie Warrior Ben.

He even went for the scary look underneath his helmet.

When 5.30pm came along Ben and Jenny went trick or treating around the caravan park and Lou sat out the front of our van with a tub of treats for any other kids who came knocking.  Unfortunately, we were about the most enthusiastic people there.  Only two other caravans had decorated and for the first 30 mins, Ben and Jenny were the only people trick or treating.  Luckily some of the non-decorated vans saw Ben out and about and found something for him so he didn’t feel totally let down.  Lou sat out the front in a zombie mask with people walking past looking at her like she was a weirdo.  

Lonely Lou waiting for trick or treaters.

Luckily our van was right next to where the outdoor movie was being shown so Lou was able to give some other kids some of the treats.  Ben ended up doing OK with treats as the caravan park owners handed some out too.  Ben made friends with a Dutch girl dressed as Princess Elsa and they sat together to watch the Goosebumps movie.  Overall, it was a bit disappointing and we’ve had to promise Ben a more exciting Halloween next year.

Scuba

Jenny did her Advanced Open Water Scuba diving training with Adrenaline Dive Center and had a great time out on the reef.  The second day included a dive on the famous Yongala Wreck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Yongala which was a bit of a bonus.  She saw heaps of amazing coral and aquatic life including Giant Trevally, Maori Wrasse, Green Turtles and an olive sea snake that swam 10cm from her head (the olive sea snake is Australia's most venomous snake!)

Diving on the Yongala wreck

And something that unfortunately can’t be unseen – one of Jenny's dive buddies….

Aargh, my eyes hurt!

Barra Fun Park – Part 1

While Jenny was out diving, Lou and Ben went to the Barra Fun Park, where they have a giant slip ‘n slide, a dam full of inflatable play equipment, a cable ski (which we didn’t do) and four dams full of barramundi for you to catch.  What more could we want?  Maybe Lou would finally catch that barra, even if it was kind of rigged.

Barra Fun Park

Lou and Ben had a great time on the inflatable playground.  It is one of those places that is ‘old school’ fun.  Adults need to leave their dignity at the door, as it is like walking onto the set of Wipeout and there is no chance that you’ll make it through the day without landing unceremoniously on your arse several times.   The likelihood of injury is high and if the OHS people ever went through they’d enforce all kinds of sensible safety measures that would ruin it for everyone.  As it was, Lou only sustained some bruises (from slipping backwards down a steep wall she’d been climbing to reach the top of a slide.  She went down back first and ended up squished between two of the mats at the bottom with her legs sticking up in the air.  It was VERY funny).  

Ben did the biggest belly whacker in history and had a sore tummy for a week, although this can’t really be blamed on the equipment.  He went to jump off a high tower onto an inflatable pillow and knowing his love of a belly whacker, Lou yelled up to him “DON’T land on your tummy!”  Unfortunately Ben heard “Land on your tummy!” and leapt off like a skydiver.  Lou and another Mum who were watching both winced as he landed. There were tears but before long he was climbing and sliding and leaping again.

Benny belly-flopped off the pyramid behind him in the pic onto the pillow below.

Lou tried some of the barra fishing but the fish are really lethargic and obviously so overfed that that they can’t bothered being caught.  Here is a picture of her line, with bait on it in the water being sniffed by 5 barramundi, all of whom then just turned away and slowly swam off.  It was ridiculous and no fun at all.

Lethargic, over-fed Barramundi

Riverway

There is an awesome free swimming area in Townsville called Riverway that sits alongside the Ross River.  They are called ‘Lagoons’ but they are actually beautifully clean and clear swimming pools right next to the Ross River and a great playground.  We spent a lovely afternoon there.

Checking out the turtles in the Ross River.

One of the lagoons at Riverway is an infinity pool.

The Strand

Townsville has a great esplanade called The Strand.  It has a free water park, lots of exercise stations and playgrounds along it’s length and a huge sea water rock pool at one end that has filters to keep out the stingers.  We went into The Strand a couple of times, it's great fun.

One of the many playgrounds along The Strand.

The Strand Rockpool.

The Strand Splash Park

Castle Hill

Castle Hill provides 360 degree views over Townsville.  It's also obviously a very good place to exercise as we saw heaps of people running and walking up it.

View from Castle Hill.

Another view from Castle Hill

Magnetic Island

Magnetic Island is tantalizingly close Townsville and we decided to do an overnighter there while the car got serviced.   We booked a hotel room in Arcadia Village and caught the ferry across to the island, taking the local bus from the ferry terminal to the hotel.  

We got some good tips from the lovely woman at the hotel, including the recommendation to hire a stinger suit for Ben at the local dive shop. She said that it was early in the season and they hadn’t had any stingers yet but it is best to extra careful with kids.  

Our first stop was Horseshoe Bay where we swam in the area sectioned off with stinger nets.  There is no coral to see but we took our snorkel gear to test it out and get Ben used to it again after a long time without using it.  We swam all around the enclosure and as we got back to shore Ben announced that one of his fins had fallen off his foot – sometime in the previous 10 minutes….

The next half an hour saw Ben sitting on the shore playing in the sand while Lou and Jenny did a grid search of the entire enclosure, trying to find the fin.  The water was pretty deep so we had to take big breaths and dive down to see the bottom.  It was hard work!  Jenny persisted longer than Lou and was rewarded by somehow spotting the fin stuck in the sand. 
  

Ben in his stinger suit "Burqini"

After a rest, we went to Alma Bay which is near our hotel.  There are no stinger nets there but we went for a snorkel (Ben had his suit on) anyway and it was fine.  We saw great coral and lots of fish and Ben was awesome even though it was a little choppy.

Ready to snorkel at Alma Bay.

The lady at the hotel had told us that there is rock wallaby feeding at 5.30pm so we walked across the road to the designated spot in a carpark near an old jetty and saw an old man in a mobility scooter with a few buckets of grains and fruit pieces.  There were a bunch of tourists there and we could see lots of wallabies in the rocks surrounding us.  The man feeds the wallabies every day and knows all 60 of them by sight.  He said that if we wait around until everyone else leaves the wallabies come down from the rocks.  So, we waited and were amazed as dozens of wallabies emerged and gathered around us.  Ben absolutely loved it and was hand feeding all his new friends, even working out which ones liked which types of grains and gathering little piles of each accordingly.

Hand feeding the rock wallabies.

Ben made lots of friends.

The rock wallaby whisperer.

The next morning we visited Arthur Bay which is a bus ride and a walk from the hotel.   The snorkeling is really great there but the water was a bit rougher and colder so Ben didn’t enjoy it as much.  We had the beach to ourselves and it is a gorgeous spot (even though it rained, it was still warm).  I felt a couple of little stings but didn’t see any marks but when Jenny snorkeled over the other side of the bay she suddenly felt a lot of them (still little stings) so got out straight away.

Setting Ben up for snorkeling at Arthur Bay.

Time to leave after Jenny got a few little stings.

We had a swim in the hotel pool before heading back to the ferry terminal to return to Townsville.

Ross, Barb and Daniel!!

We’d been keeping in touch with our good travel buddies Ross, Barb and Daniel and realised that we would be in the same area at the same time again.  We decided to surprise the boys, and the day we came back from Magnetic Island, they checked into the Big 4 as well, in a site next to ours.  We had left our van there and when they pulled in Daniel said “Look! There’s Benny’s caravan!”  Barb had to fib and tell him that it wasn’t but he was insistent as Ben’s bike was chained to the front.  Somehow she was able to persuade him that it was just another caravan that looked like ours and they spent the afternoon at the pool.

Ben fell asleep in the car on the way home from the ferry and when he woke up he was a bit groggy.  We told him that we had a surprise for him – that Daniel was waiting back at our caravan but he didn’t believe us!  We promised him that we weren’t tricking him but he never really believed it until we turned the corner and he saw Daniel’s van.  He jumped out of the car before it had stopped moving and ran over to the pool.  The look on his and Daniel’s faces when they saw each other again was priceless. Such good friends!

Oh my God, it's Daniel!  And check out the look on Daniels face.

We spent a few days together in Townsville and took them to Barra Fun Park again.  Benny had even more fun with Daniel there and as Lou thought, Jenny loved it too.

Barra Fun Park.

She made this great video of Ross and Barb – hilarious!

Unbeknownst to us, Ross was making his own video of Jenny's Barra Fun Park day.  As we said above, you leave your dignity at the door.  Introducing 'Glamourpuss'.

 

Lou and Barb went fishing and almost immediately caught a couple of smallish fish.  Barb also caught a reasonably sized estuary cod.  It was all looking positive until they realised that they were being massacred by sandflies.  They packed up quickly and fled that spot but not before scoring a number of very itchy bites each!

We had a great time seeing those guys again and we were sad to part ways once more.  They have about 6 weeks longer than us to travel before heading home so are heading inland again for a while.

Hughenden, Porcupine Gorge, Pentland Hotel and Charters Towers

After Richmond we took the bouncy road back to Hughenden and discovered that being Sunday afternoon, absolutely EVERYTHING was closed.  It was like a ghost town.  We went to a free camp at the race track and played some cricket until another caravan arrived and Ben immediately ditched us for the 7 year old boy who climbed out.

Hello!!  Anyone home?

Hughenden is the third town on the Dinosaur Trail and is home to the Muttaburrasaurus or “Mutta” as it is referred to by the locals.  There is a giant “Mutta” statue on the median strip in town and an almost complete skeleton in the visitor centre museum.  There are also loads of other fossils, ammonites, gemstones and a sheep shearing display.  

'Mutta' in the centre of town.

'Mutta' in the museum.

Sheep...

On the way out of the visitor centre we booked a campsite at nearby Porcupine Gorge and picked up an info sheet on the fossicking site on the way out there.  The site is on the roadside in an old creek bed and despite digging around for an hour we only found a couple of small broken Belemnites.  It was super hot so we didn’t stay there long.

Fossicking

The road out to Porcupine Gorge is still ‘bouncy’ and is so bad at one point that they have actually had to put up traffic signs slowing everyone to 60 kmph to prevent vehicles bottoming out on a dip.  We took it easy and arrived at a beautiful campground with only one other vehicle there, far off on the other side, barely visible through the trees.  Ben and Jenny went for a bike ride to explore while Lou set up the van and we spent a lovely evening under clear skies with loads of stars sparkling above us.  

 

The next morning we hiked down into the gorge, stopping at a lookout with views of Pyramid Rock.  The trail down is steep steps and we had to be careful not to slip on the gravel.  When we reached the bottom we found ourselves on a sandy beach-like section with a river running along in front of us.   

Being Egyptians near Pyramid Rock

There was a reasonable amount of water in it but it was obviously nowhere near capacity.  It wasn’t really flowing much and there were large pools that would usually be part of one big waterway.  We walked along the bank and could see lots of little fish and some turtles swimming around.  At the base of Pyramid Rock there is a swimming hole and we were keen to cool off after walking in the hot sun.  The pool wasn’t too bad but there wasn’t much water flow so we didn’t put our heads under, much to Ben’s annoyance as he likes to explore underwater and jump off rocks into the deep.

Down the bottom of the gorge.

Nice little swimming hole.

Lou and Ben taking a dip.

Ben and Lou decided that it would be good exercise to jog back up the trail to the van but got about 100m and declared that it was far too hot and steep to do something so silly.

We drove back through Hughenden and headed towards Townsville, where we were eager to see the ocean after a long time inland.  

We stopped overnight at the Pentland Hotel which has free camping out the back.  We had a couple of drinks in the near empty bar, having a good chat with the girl working there.  Ben was full of energy after a few hours stuck in the car and was jumping up and down the stairs and hanging off the rails.  As we walked back to the van he found a big rock to leap onto but slipped and ended up doing the splits, with his front leg scraping along the top of it, grazing the back of his thigh pretty badly.  He was a very unhappy boy and we had to break out the first aid kit because it was way too big a graze for a band aid.   After sorting through the various dressings, pads and bandages we settled on this, which is overkill but made him feel much better….

The life threatening injury.

He was feeling better enough the following morning to don his armour and challenge Jenny to a dual so it must have been a good patch up job.

Construction credits to our friends Daniel and Barb.

Our next stop was Charters Towers.  We only had an afternoon to pass through and wished we could have stayed overnight at least.  It is much bigger than we anticipated and has some great things to see.

The highlight of the stopover (other than Ben agreeing to get a haircut) was visiting The Miner's Cottage - a mining museum where the owner taught us how to pan for gold.  He said it would put us in good stead for our next visit to Sovereign Hill, if we pan there actually knowing what to do we should find enough to cover our admission price.

Ben panning for gold.

Inspecting his find.

Real gold!