Not Before Time

First off, before I update about where we are and what we’re up to, I have to apologise to my sister Rosemary! We stayed a couple of nights with Rosemary and Graeme when we were in Melbourne, but for some reason I failed to mention that on here, so after a phone call from Rosemary reminding me (you know how bossy she is ) I would like to say that we had a great time with Rosemary and Graeme, we shared a bottle of Moet (ok, Rosemary shared it with me) and the room was gorgeous, with fluffy pillows, beautiful bed linen and it was very comfortable – a 5 star hotel But!!! – she forget to put the chocolates on the bed, we had to ask for them!! However even with that grave error on her part, I guess I would stay there again I am sorry I didn’t mention it here though – must be getting old or something.

We’re now in Mackay and hopefully will find some work here soon. On the way up we stopped for a few days in Flaggy Rock, 100km south of Mackay, to visit friends. Kay and Ray are caretakers of the Community Centre and swimming pool at Flaggy, and Kay is very involved in the various craft sessions they run there. It was great catching up with them, we haven’t seen them since they left Darwin to head west, and we went south. Apart from a few houses, some cattle and sugar cane properties, there isn’t much else in Flaggy – it’s peaceful, relaxing and lovely. The community centre has also just gotten approval for self contained motorhomes and vans to stay overnight, $5/night/vehicle. There are toilets there, but no showers. A good spot to stop for a night or two and do nothing.

On the way here we got held up by 2 of these on the road –

The pilot and police escorts actually did a really good job organising the traffic, keeping the buckets well apart and informing oncoming traffic that they were on the road well in advance of them suddenly finding themselves forced off the road It was quite interesting seeing them – they are each 7.5m wide .

Before we left Bundaberg, I wanted to get some night shots, especially of the bridges – there are 4 of them crossing the Burnett river in town, and I thought at least one of them would be lit up at night time, but unfortunately none of them were. However, I did get a couple of the post office and war memorial and 1 of a bridge where the traffic gave some light.

Bundaberg has some beautiful sunsets, most of which I unfortunately missed, mainly due to my being busy socialising and having a drink during sunset time. However one night I somehow managed to foresee that there might be a good one so I went out and sat on the back of the truck and waited. Rather than being the normal pinky coloured sunsets I’ve generally seen here, this one was the most beautiful golden sunset.

One night our last week in Bundaberg, there was a performance by Dennis Cuthel, a member of the original Aztec band (as in Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs) which was fun. Dennis plays a good mix of classic rock music and most of the park guests turned out to see him, with some of them even getting up to dance. He did a great job and still has a good voice, although I heard afterwards that we wasn’t very well that night. During the break, his partner was demonstrating line dancing, but wasn’t very successful in getting people to join in.

Before we left Bundaberg, I got the chance to go to The Bundaberg Quilters 12th Biennial Quilt Exhibition last Friday at the Civic Centre in town. I had a great couple of hours checking out the local quilting talent and sitting around talking to some of the quilters while having a coffee and cake. This show was really well run, and very organised. All the women I spoke to today were friendly and happy to chat about the Bundaberg quilting group and answer questions about their activities. And of course, there were lots of gorgeous quilts to see.

On the way home from the festival, we stopped off to have a look at the Flying High Bird Sanctuary just outside Childers. This is the largest free flight aviary in Australia and I’d been planning on visiting it by myself at some stage while we were in Bundaberg, cause David’s not really as interested in birds as I am – but he did enjoy it, or at least he said he did It’s probably a touch expensive at $18 for entry, but I love birds so I was happy to pay it. The owners only took over about 4 months ago, and I don’t know what the facility was like when they took it over, but they said they had made some changes with a lot more to come (koalas for instance) and they seem to be really enjoying the business.

The aviary has about 400 metres of walkway and most of the birds are freely flying about. Some of the lorikeets and parrots are very cheeky and will land on your shoulder trying to get your earrings (which I’d been warned about, so I took mine out), or in my case, the chain holding my glasses.

At the moment, there are still some birds in cages – mainly the cockatoos, some of the larger parrots, and of course the Macaws, but there are plans for a big parrot cage where they can fly around more freely.

I really enjoyed it. Here’s a few photos of the birds.

We went to the Childers Festival of Cultures today, the second day of a 2 day event. This year is the 15th year for the festival and over the years the number of people attending has grown from 6000 to 50,000 people. We got there about 8:30 this morning, and it was good we did as parking was already a fair hike from where the street stalls and entertainment was. It was interesting to see that the event this year was dog and smoke free. A sign of the times. Mind you, it didn’t stop people taking their dogs – maybe the word didn’t get out about that. I didn’t see anyone smoking in the area though.

The main street ( which is also the Bruce Highway) was closed off, and market stalls had taken over the road. The stalls sold everything from clothing, jewellery, and handmade soaps and jams, through to hats, novelties and home wares. Some of the local community artists were there showcasing the regional arts and craft groups.

There were also a lot of food stalls selling food from different countries, Thai, Japanese, French, Hungarian, to name a just a few. Some of the food you could buy included crayfish (Redclaw, and excellent), kebabs, burgers, all different types of sausages and even Tibetan momo’s (dumplings). We had the crayfish, salt and pepper calamari and the Japanese gyoza. I forgot to take photos of the crayfish and gyoza – we were too hungry and greedy to wait. But I did remember to take a couple of the calamari (which was really, really good).

Wineries were also well represented with local wines from the Wide Bay area providing tastings and sales.

The entertainment was provided by street performers moving through the crowds, and musical acts from different genres and countries performed on the various stages set up around the area. There were demonstrations of rock and roll dancing, line dancing, and belly dancing and clogging. We hadn’t seen clogging before so that was an experience.

The music on stage varied from jazz, blues, rock and ethnic – so lots of variety for everyone. The Swinging Dixie Jazz Band was really good. So were Los Cobros – a blues and rock ‘n roll band.

Children were well catered for too with a petting zoo, carnival rides, a rock climbing wall for the older kids, and stalls selling toys, carnival food stuff and novelties designed to separate the parents from their wallets.

This was a great local festival, probably one of the best we’ve been to – if you happen to be in the area on the last weekend in July next year, go have a look – you know I wouldn’t lead you astray! Honest, I wouldn’t

By the way – has anyone seen these?

They are called Chips on a Stick and are selling for $5 each at the festival. Someone’s doing well – $5 for 1 deep fried potato!! And they were selling well. Amazing.

On Thursday we went for a drive to Agnes Waters and the town of 1770 which are about 120kms from Bundaberg. The day was cool and overcast when we left, but got warmer and clearer as we went north. The countryside is mainly agricultural land with sugar cane, strawberries and tomatoes being some of the major crops getting harvested right now.

Agnes Waters is a lovely little coastal town with a beautiful beach. It (and 1770) is really a full on tourist town with lots of holiday accommodation and heaps of activities to keep you busy if that’s what you want – such as snorkeling, surfing (it’s the northernmost surf beach on the east coast) scuba diving, fishing etc. The towns are at the southern edge of the Great Barrier Reef, and there are tours to Fitzroy Reef Lagoon and Lady Musgrave Island , There’s a small but good shopping centre there too. We spent most of our time at Agnes Waters walking along the beach and had a picnic lunch in the park.

1770

The town of 1770 is where Captain Cook came ashore, his second landing in Australia, and the first landing in Queensland, and the town is referred to as the birthplace of Queensland.

The bay is very sheltered so is a great area for mooring boats. It was nice and quiet when we went there, with just enough people around to make it interesting. The foreshore area wasn’t busy, probably because it was a little cool, and the tide was out, so it was easy to walk around and take photos. The town is quite hilly and if you go for a walk or drive you can see some great views out over the bay.

There’s an annual Captain Cook 1770 Festival held in May with market stalls, a parade, a reenactment of the landing and lots of family activities to commemorate the landing by Captain Cook.

I think it would be packed in the summer months. We’d like to see it then, but aren’t so sure about dealing with all the tourists! We’d like to go back again for a sunset which is reputed to be spectacular – the area is apparently one of only 3 spots on the east coast where a sunset happens over the water.

Miara

On the way home from Agnes Waters we checked out a place called Miara which a number of people have told us about. There’s nothing there except a boat ramp and the caravan park – and it’s lovely. When we drove down to the boat ramp a herd of cattle were blocking the road, we had to wait for them as they weren’t going to shift, especially the huge bull! They were busy eating some sugar cane – hmm, wonder if it makes the milk sweeter? Anyway they eventually moved after posing for photos

Sighs, it’s a shame we have to find work, otherwise we’d be spending a few weeks here and a few at Agnes Waters too. But we’ll see what we can do if/when we finish working in Bundaberg.