Woodgate to Townsville

There seems to be something of a lag since I last posted. I put this down to my natural inclination to laziness. Anyway, here we are at Townsville ready to uplift for the trip to Mission Beach on Sunday. 

Since the last post we have skipped through Woodgate, Bundaberg, Tannum Sands (Gladstone), Rockhampton, Mackay, Airlie Beach which included a couple of days on Daydream Island and now Townsville. Parting from Woodgate, these are all quite sizeable towns along Queensland’s East Coast, dominated by the sugar industry and the endless miles of cane fields.

It was a short drive from Howard to Woodgate. Woodgate was on our list as Jenny’s cousin owns the Serenity Cove Café which has a handy position at the NRMA caravan park where we were staying. There is not much at Woodgate… a small community that hosts holiday makers from the colder parts of Australia who enjoy the quiet atmosphere of this village, the calm waters of the beautiful beach, and the delightful fare of the Serenity Cove Café. It has been a while since we have caught up with Jacquie and her husband Robert, so it was good to have a coffee or two and a meal or two and a chat or two.

Leaving Woodgate we begin to get an idea of the ubiquity of cane fields, which stretch away from the roads as we make the short drive to Bundaberg. The other significant set of landmarks were Clive Palmer’s large roadside signs calling us to Freedom. I will be happy if I never see anything reminding me of Clive Palmer again. We enjoyed some of the delights of Bundaberg including a tour of the Bundaberg Rum distillery, getting to taste some of the product. In my protected life I have not tasted rum before, so it was a new experience, and while it was drinkable, I think I will stick to my modest consumption of wine. The Botanical gardens provided a pleasant relief, and also a chance to see some historic properties and the Hinkler Aero Museum. It was a longer drive to Gladstone, where we were camping at the more appealing Tannum Sands, where we were located very close to the beach. The big attraction was the Beach Markets, though I managed to avoid the obvious allure of this, preferring to catch up with some reading. Gladstone is dominated by its port facility where it offloads a significant portion of Australia’s coal exports The riverside has been given an amazing makeover with parklands, outdoor theatre, and a water park for children to play, and it was very pleasant to have a coffee at one of the cafes there and stroll along the shore.

I must confess I have generally had a fairly low expectation of Rockhampton, perhaps coloured by our visit there many decades ago when it just seemed a rather large bush town. But the city has obviously done a lot to polish its image with a pleasant riverside boulevard and nicely restored colonial and heritage buildings. The main thing it seemed to be missing was people, as on the Saturday morning the main city centre was totally unpopulated. Well, maybe not totally… After wandering around the Heritage Trail and admiring the lovely buildings, we eventually found a café. It turned out that the Rockhampton Show was the main event in town for the weekend. We drove down to the showgrounds and joined the throng, gratified that we had to cough up just $5 apiece for the privilege.

I think the last time we had been to an agricultural show was about 20 years ago, and that level of frequency suits me fine. There were very few displays, and none of the really exciting things such as tent-pegging. The locals were intent on getting their Dagwood Dogs, fairly floss and similar vile concoctions from gaudy, sparkling, neon-lit vans. Bored-looking  hawkers over-decorated with bright makeup tried to sound vaguely enthusiastic in calling people to the shooting gallery, clowns, dodgem cars, ferris wheel, and some really dangerous looking machines that flung the poor patrons in all directions. It is fascinating that the scene remains unchanged from when I was a kid. Jen bought some show bags and we called it a day after a circuit of the stalls. The most exciting thing was the duck race, where the birds navigated a race track with various impediments put in their path. The ducks were very enthusiastic and certainly bought in the spirit of the race straining for the last ounce of speed and craning their little necks to reach the finish line. It looked like fun – if you were a duck!

We did a few more tourist things in Rocky, including visiting the Capricorn Caves which were very impressive, an Indigenous Heritage park, The Rocky Zoo and Botanical Gardens and the beachside towns of Yeppoon and Emu Park. Yeppoon was a lovely town, and quite unlike my memory of it from 1977. When we passed through 45 years ago, Yeppoon was a largely undeveloped place with a beach that consisted of mud stretching out into the distance. Maybe it was a very low tide but it was decidedly unimpressive. But it has grown into a lively, attractive seaside town with delightful walks along the beachside. John has a friend who has a sister who has a café – Flour – where we had a terrific lunch. Back at Rocky, jen and I had a game of golf at the Rocky Golf Club. It was a very nice course, and I even managed a win, which is a bit rare against Jenny. Our guide at the Indigenous Heritage Park gave us a demonstration of his skill with the didgeridoo. It was one of the best rendition I have heard of this instrument. He also gave a demo with boomerangs and he managed to fling them off to come back in a wide arc to his feet. We had a go as well.  It was pretty clear that I have no future as a boomerang thrower as I nearly impaled my foot. Jen was a bit better but she attempted the throw with a 4.5 degree of difficulty, trying out a back flip with pike, landing with not much grace.

Queensland has interesting cities along the coast and we had a couple of days at Mackay. If Rocky impressed with the Show, Mackay did its best with the Beach Races. The event has been on hold for a few years, and on Saturday the city invaded the beach near the Harbour for the horse racing. We spent some time on the rock wall of the breakwater waiting for the action, and while there were plenty of people in the temporary stands the horses seemed reluctant to play their part. After Mackay, we headed for Airlie Beach via Cape Hillsborough where we enjoyed a calming walk through the cool of the mangrove forest.

Airlie Beach is very much a resort town, and we escaped for a couple of days over at Daydream Island, which was very much like Airlie Beach only more expensive. Still, it was pleasant to pause for a couple of days. But now we are at Townsville for a couple of days. It is getting close now to one of the main reasons for this trip – the Cairns to the Cape Tour. We will have a longer stay here (Townsville) on the return leg of our holiday. 

I am sorry this is something of a longer post, and sadly, there is not much of interest. But I am under a bit of pressure to produce something. I hope you have made it to this point.

Cheers