Not Before Time

Townsville has many parks and gardens, and one of the first places I wanted to check out was the Town Common, a nature reserve a few kilometres north of the town which becomes a wetlands area during the wet season.

We went for a drive the other day to see if we could find it so I would know how to get there by myself later on. It’s a great area for bird watching, with brolgas, magpie geese, various birds of prey, finches, wrens etc. There are a number of hides set up so you can watch the birds without disturbing them. Even though it was the wrong time of the day for many birds to be out, there were still quite a few and I managed to get a couple of photos of a pair of Brolgas – admittedly not very good photos, I couldn’t get close enough, but hey, it’s the first time I’ve managed to even get close enough to see them in the wild so I’m happy with them

I also managed to get a couple of photo of a falcon, thanks to David’s sharp eyes. He’s great to take along as a lookout. Hmmm, maybe I should hire him out to birdwatchers!

I’m really looking forward to the end of the wet season so I can get out and see some more! It’s actually teeming down as I’m typing this post

Well we’ve left Mackay and are now in Townsville. For some reason, neither of us were able to really settle in Mackay so the decision to leave was fairly easy, the hard part was leaving behind the friends we’ve got there. But they all have plans to come up to Townsville so we’ll still get to see them periodically which is great. So far (apart from the weather) Townsville has been good – we’re in a nice park close to everything, we’ve met a few of the residents here (lots of people are here long term and working) and everyone is very friendly. Now we’ll start looking for work!

On the way up we stopped at O’Connell River for a night and then 2 nights in Bowen. The day we left Mackay was quite good, at least the rain had stopped for a while, so after setting up the van at O’Connell River we went for a drive to Airlie Beach. We’d been there before when we’d gone out for a drive when in Mackay, but it was pouring down that time, so we thought we’d have another look while it was a reasonable day. I know lots of people like Airlie Beach, but to be honest, we’re not big fans – it’s very touristy. But I can understand that some holiday makers and backpackers would like it – there are a couple of nice beach areas close to rental apartments, take away food places and shops selling souvenirs and beach clothing etc. We prefer places like Cedar Creek Falls, a lovely spot between Proserpine and Airlie Beach, with swimming hole and waterfall – really pretty.

When we got back to the park we went for a walk and checked out the river. I only had my phone with me, so I took a couple of photos of the river using that camera. Everything was a bit wet and muddy and they are still in the process of cleaning up after cyclone Yasi, but I think the park would be a great spot to stay during the dry season. And the fishing is supposed to be great. I did hear however that there are crocs in the river, which may have played a part in me not going right down to the bank to check it out – knowing how clumsy I can be, and how muddy and slippery it was, the thought did cross my mind that I might have ended up going A over T into the water! Not a good thought if there are crocs in it

The rain had stopped when we left for Bowen the next day, and the sun stayed out most of the day. We got there fairly early since it’s only about 80kms from O’Connell River. We stayed at the Coral Coast Beachfront Holiday Park which is right on the beach. We don’t normally stay at big 4 parks because we really aren’t interested in all the facilities they offer, but, as I normally do, I’d looked online at the van parks in the area to make sure we could get in somewhere, and this one seemed like it might be ok, only 1 of 2 that might be able to fit us in. And it was, but only because they weren’t busy. The park is very compact with smaller sites, and in the high season when the park is packed, there’s no way we would have gotten our van in, it’s way too tight. However, the staff are great and took David’s word that he would be able to park up ok, which of course he did We had a lovely couple of days there, and we really like Bowen so will head back down there at some stage for a long weekend.

We’ve heard the fishing is excellent there, but unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to get the rods out, so will make sure we do next time we’re there.

Well we’re still in Mackay, although we’ve decided we will move on in a couple of weeks – head up to Townsville. David has already handed in his notice at work and now we are both looking online for work in Townsville. Neither of us have been further north than Mackay in Queensland, so we’re looking forward to new places to see.

I forgot to put a post up about the cyclone, and that’s probably partly because it didn’t affect us much and it to me it somehow seemed wrong posting about how we breezed through it when so many other places have had so much damage done and people have lost so much. However, we were evacuated from the park where we’ve been staying, so decided to head over to Theresa Creek Dam, about 320km south west of Mackay, near Clermont. We thought since we had to pack everything up, we might as well stay for a few days, so made sure we filled the water tanks and took plenty of fuel with us for the generator.

Theresa Creek is lovely, and since this is the quiet time of the year there, we had the place pretty much to ourselves apart from 3 or 4 other families or couples from Mackay and Townsville escaping the cyclone. A number of people from the park here went to Clermont, about 20kms from Theresa Creek Dam, so the park there was really busy, but I think people wanted the mod cons, electricity and so on. We were really glad we went to the dam, it was pretty, and quiet and relaxing. We spent the days walking, reading, and fishing. We heard the Redclaw (think big yabbies with a red claw) was good eating, so we put in a net and managed to get a heap of them which we boiled up and enjoyed with just vinegar and salt and pepper. Beautiful!

Apparently the dam gets very busy on the weekends with ski boats, jet ski’s, family bbqs and picnics, and I imagine it would get pretty noisy, but during the week it was really peaceful. The only noisy bit was the dawn chorus with the birds, but that’s not hard to put up with. There were heaps of birds there – rainbow lorikeets (who would eat from your hand), noisy miners, blue eyed honeyeaters, apostle birds, magpies, magpie larks etc, and they are obviously used to people as they didn’t show any sign of concern at us being around them. We were set up under a tree so had a lot of them around us all the time. We’ll be making sure we’ll get back there again.