Townsville to the mountain

After dropping John at the airport just after 5am we headed south, intending to do some camping on the way home. Later in the day we arrived at Cape Hillsborough National Park which is just north of Mackay where we had a campsite booked in the campground on Smalleys Beach. What Cape Hillsborough National Park lacks in size, it is all made up by the sheer beauty of this wonderful section of the Queensland Coast.

There are two campsites within this National Park, the one where we are staying and also a commercial one called Cape Hillsborough Resort. The good points about the resort is it has the best beach, power, hot showers and flushing toilets, compared to a candle, a pit toilet and a bucket of water over the head for a shower at Smalleys beach. But being true campers and bushwalkers we choose Smalleys Beach. The individual secluded sites are set just back from the beach behind vegetation.

We were only here for two nights so we wasted no time next morning before we were out walking. As it was low tide we were able to walk over to Wedge Island. It is joined to the mainland by a rocky natural path that is submerged at high tide so it is only assessable for a few hours each day. After exploring what we could on this rugged rocky island we walked back to the mainland to be surprised by a couple of kangaroo’s lounging around on the beach. A very rare sight but apparently it is common here.

There is also another walk up to a lookout but we were running out of time so we settled for the mangrove boardwalk to an ancient aboriginal midden. A bit disappointing as weeds had been allowed to grow out of control in the midden. I really think this should be better looked after as it is a very important part of our past.

Out of the mangroves and back to the campsite for another great night at our secluded camp. A good meal , a glass of wine and a few games of backgammon before turning in for the night.

Next morning we packed up and headed further south. Today’s camp is in Eurimbula National Park just south of Gladstone. We had booked on the web, a campsite on Bustard Beach for the next two nights. After turning left off the road to the township of 1770 we drove on rough bush tracks about 25 km before arriving at Bustard Beach.

Our booked campsite was occupied by a couple of fisherman who had not paid and was out fishing. It was a 100 kilometres to the nearest ranger station to get them moved, fortunately our mobile phone worked so we were able to arrange another site for us to camp. It turned out that the illegal campers had done us a favour as other drunken fisherman in that section of the camping area partied all night. We had a lovely night down at site 15, secluded and once again a beach site tucked in behind trees with just a short stroll to the beach. We spent next day walking along the deserted beach and up a small mangrove inlet.

After two great nights here we packed up and headed to Point Vernon where a good friend from the Vietnam War lived. John and Tess lived on the Gold Coast before moving up here. Here is a photo of John, taken out at Fire Support Base Garth in 1971. We really liked Point Vernon an feel as if we could live here when the cold up on Tamborine Mountain gets too much for us. One night here and its time to head home. Its mid winter on the mountain and we are leaving the nice warm coast to a freezing wet mountain. I have a bushwalk with the club that I am leading on Saturday so home we must go.