Gumma

Catching up with Terry & Sue and Les & Jan
We enjoyed a fantastic bbq evening with Terry & Sue (who met at Bramston Beach).  Their hospitality was warm and friendly and they made us feel extremely welcome, even though we parked the van on their driveway overnight!  Les & Jan also popped by for the evening - more folks from Bramston, who live locally to Terry & Sue.  It was like a Bramston reunion!!

Alas, next day it was time to move south... getting closer and closer to home....

Most of eastern Australia advertises Motackle on TV -we couldn't resist visiting the store! 
Talk about hog's heaven!!!

River camping
We stopped in at Gumma, to stay beside the river, and to catch up with Barney & Therese, a fishing-mad couple we met at... you guessed it..... Bramston Beach.  Barney makes regular appearances on TV to show the public his talents in and passion for fishing, and we loved being shown their beautiful home which includes a massive cast of a marlin Barney caught some years ago, which is proudly displayed on the wall in their living room!

The Gumma Reserve is one of those special places that are becoming rarer on the east coast, and we hope it is here for everyone to enjoy for many years to come.  A long grassed area flanks the river and campers can pitch their tent or park their van right on the water's edge.  It's really family-friendly, and every day there are kids swimming in the river or running around playing.  ...getting fresh air, like the good ol' days!

The view from our campsite

 

 

 

The view of our campsite from the water

 

Fishing & other exciting stuff
During our stay we enjoyed fishing with Barney and his father-in-law Terry (caught some nice Flathead), fishing off the riverbank right at our caravan site (but only caught a mullet and whiting), and taking the Zodiac out for  a spin whenever we felt like it (we set the boat up once and left it at the shore - it's all very safe and friendly here at Gumma).  Other exciting events included the commercial fishermen who created tremendous conflict when they set their nets right at the campground (one camper was literally abused physically and was close to pressing charges), and the fire brigade conducting a control-burn which blazed and smoldered all night, just metres from the campsites (several campers packed up and left.  We stayed to watch the show).

Nice catch of flathead, up to 46cm

Not usually a welcome sight...

Getting outside and enjoying the scenery
I've also decided to do a little more about keeping fit and have endeavoured to walk 5 or 6km every morning.  Gumma is just so pretty - other than a lovely river system, there are small-scale farms and forests everywhere. Walking for 45 minutes or so is easy when the scenery is this good.

Next stop? 
Point Plomer for a spot of beach fishing, then onwards to Canberra!

 

Feeding the seagulls

We've travelled for almost two years, and noticed that most of the seabirds act like birds: they steer clear of humans, they eat fish or forage in the shallows, and they don't argue like misbehaving children.

Now that we are south of Brisbane, the seagulls are acting in more familiar ways - squabbling, bickering, wingeing, whining on and on and on.....

We attempted to drive to Byron Bay for a bit of a look around but the traffic into town was entirely gridlocked.  Eventually we got in, but alas, nowhere at all to park, so we kept driving.

Along the Tourist Route we found Lennox Head, a charming seaside town.  Its fish'n'chip shop is "best-ever" and the town even has a few hippy/Bali/Indian shops which kept me entertained.  Meanwhile, Jase was entertained by those scavenging scumbags, the seagulls.

Fighting over a mid-air prawn tail.  Who will win????

Hang-gliders use this hill to launch themselves up and over the water

The Tourist Route follows the coastline

Cup of tea?

I must be going mad.

I'm soooo looking forward to seeing family & friends again that I have fantasised about hosting afternoon tea, morning tea, high tea.... you name it.

I fell in love with this crockery and slipped into Myer to buy whatever stock they had on hand!

Jase is excited too - it was his idea to unwrap some of it, make a divine lunch of various toasties, and enjoy a cup of tea...

Photos of Natural Bridge

Lovely, isn't it?

Next to the highway

Almost as far south as Brisbane....

Tonight we stayed close to the highway on a little patch off gravel and stones behind a petrol station, surrounded by truckies.  But amidst this concrete jungle, little feathered creatures emerged from trees buttressing an old tin shed, to keep Jase entertained while I went shopping.

Happy Birthday Rebecca!!

Rebecca, Tony & their gorgeous children Theabella and Christopher came to Coolangatta to celebrate Rebecca's 40th birthday.

We timed our journey to meet them there, and help them celebrate this very special birthday with their friends.

Happy birthday Rebecca!!!!!!



Just look at this beautiful family...

Of course, taking a trip to Coolangatta wouldn't be right if you didn't take advantage to the monster swimming pools located in many of the resorts.  The Calypso has an excellent pool which includes a couple of water slides.  All the Dads loved cruising down the slides... although some of the kids (Christopher) are a little too light to slide down without slowing to a halt! 

Jase, as always, loves playing King of the Kids, and Christopher enjoyed being tossed into the air several hundred times.  Pity his bathers kept falling down!!



I'm pretty sure this slide is meant for little kids, not big kids!

It was great seeing you Rebecca..... see you in a few weeks at PF!!!!!

Happy times with Dadio

Currumbin is a beautiful place.  It's hilly, jungly, quiet, and at the top of the hill lives my dear Dad. 

We had a brilliant time while staying in the area for a few days: catching up, listening to music, comparing cooking notes, eating, drinking, being silly, talking philosophy, you name it.  We also had dinner at an Indian restaurant, and spent an afternoon at Dad's friend Rosie's home (more Indian food) and Jase and I even cooked for Dad and Rosie one night (you guessed it, Indian!).

One day Dad drove us to see Natural Bridge; a beautiful waterhole which has been eroded with time and created a "bridge".  The surrounding forest is alive with birds, insects, and depsite being a little dry, is brimming with palms, staghorn ferns, birds nest ferns, vines, figs and (Norfolk?) pines while the ground is littered with composting material, smaller ferns, decaying fallen trees, and fungus.  This was really enjoyable to do with Dadio.

What fun.  And at the end of it all, I realise that Dad and I are not so different, and he is happy that we have so much in common.  While we don't agree on everything, (maybe 85%?), at least we're passionate about the things we do agree on.

I love you Dadio xxxx

Coochin Creek

This was a truly beautiful place to camp - simple, quiet, honest.... other than that idiot needlehead who camped next door to us; this was perfect (although admittedly, the fishing could have been better).

Coochin Creek is family friendly as well as perfect for couples or groups of friends.  Locals come out here from Beerwah to camp on weekends and we enjoyed their company immensely.

Unfortunately, torrential rain drove away many campers who hurriedly through wet tents into their cars before zooming away home to Beerwah or Brisbane, but we stayed and enjoyed a little respite from the dry and from the heat.  In fact, the fireplaces at Coochin are perfect for slow-cooking a curry, in rain, hail or shine; so we saw no reason to dash.

Jase sweeps the front of the van; bushman-style

One of the locals comes for a visit

Curry in the rain.  Life is good.

Glasshouse Mountains

The Glasshouse Mountains, located north of Brisbane, are a group of monolithic mountains which rise from flat bushland.  The range was formed as molten lava cooled to form hard rock in the cores of volcanoes around 26 million years ago. The cores of the mountains contain columns of comendite from lava, which cools quickly into a hard rock. The surrounding softer rocks have been eroded in the subsequent time, forming the spectacular volcanic plugs that remain today.  There is a brilliant look-out area which provides fantastic views of the region.

View of the carpark and beyond, from the lookout

Sweet Transvestite

We stayed at Lake Borumba for a few nights - one of the prettiest locations, with sweeping views across steep valleys of tall gum trees and jacarandas and masses of noisy birds.  Borumba made us feel very homesick for Nearly Creek!

There is no power here and not much in the way of facilities, so the camping ground is sparce, quiet and there are very few grey nomads - it's mostly families who travel from Gympie to camp for the weekend.

On our first night, the Lake celebrated its Lions Club Fishing Competition (apparently fishing for bass here is very popular, not that we tried), and even put on a fish'n'chip night with karaoke and cheap mid-strength beer for sale.  Karaoke?? 

Jase found the prospect irresistible, and put on a show of 5 songs, much to the delight of the "crowd" (about 50 people) who cheered him on enthusiastically.  In fact, "Chops" was so popular, the Lions Club declared that "your money's no good here, son" and gave him free beer, a free Lions Xmas Cake (mmmm) and a showbag of fishing goodies!

Here's a sample of the night:

On our way south a few days later, we came across this boardwalk, with lovely views of Morton Bay fig trees which tower over the surrounding rainforest.  Just beware of stinging trees (they're everywhere).

sbh899

Lovely Orla

20 years
Jase and I are about to celebrate 20 years together as a couple.  Incredible!!!  We met on 2nd December 1992, and our first date was a couple of days later......  It's been a whirlwind 20 years - we bought our house at Mitcham in 1994, were married in 1995 and bought 121 acres of dry rocky land at Kerrisdale in 1997, which we eventually named 'Nearly Creek'.  James, then 2, is now almost 22 - a grown man with his own dreams and aspirations.  And we, now 40-ish (ahem), have sold up at Mitcham, embarked on an incredible 2-year journey in a caravan, and very soon will settle at Nearly Creek to enjoy the remainder of our years (let there be many many many of those) and fulfill our dreams of living a simple, but ever-entertaining life 'on the land'.  Lots of patience, planning and hard work have finally paid off.... and here we are, 20 years on.....  my oh my!

Rather than wait till December to celebrate, we jumped at the chance to celerbate right now, and chartered a 11 metre catamaran, the Seawind 1160, to sail the waters around Fraser Island and Hervey Bay, north of the sunshine coast, for five nights.

Mmmm...  luxury
'Orla' is just two years old, and she is absolutely beautiful.  So many luxurious features....  A big galley with lots of fridge and freezer space allowed us to pack lots of delightful treats, from cheese and pates, to prawns and champagne, to deluxe ice cream and heaps of fresh produce.  The bedrooms are spacious and the mattresses are comfortable, although we rose from bed at 5am each morning anyway!  The Orla also has a nice big stereo with lots of speakers so we enjoyed the odd party whilst onboard!  The saloon is huge too, so there was stacks of room to spread out and play cards and flick through magazies, or, if we were feeling so inclined, study the navigation maps to organise our day.  It was surreal to take a shower and watch the ocean rise and fall from the open window.  I even watched some whales playing during my shower!!

Sailing Hervey Bay
To sail, this cat is a dream.  The self-tacking system takes some of the elbow grease out of the work and the electric winches are great!  To top it off, there is an 'automatic' pilot which will hold the course you have set, so you can enjoy the view or a glass of wine without worrying about steering continuously.  You can even sneak out onto the bow for a rest while the boat dutifully takes care of you.  To raise the sails and rely only on wind-power to get from A to B is something I have never experienced before, and I loved being able to cut through the water at great speed, in complete silence.  Of course, there are a couple of big engines on board too, so it's easy to power-up if need be.

Humpback whales
The highlight, though, was our experience with humpback whales.  Each year they come to Hervey Bay simply to play, and mothers with calves can be seen and heard all day.  For us, we felt especially blessed.  On some nights, the whales could be heard singing their beautiful song, and on at least one night, it seemed to be all night long.  It was a shame to fall asleep!  Then, at dawn, mothers and calves rise to the surface where they snooze briefly, before 'waking up' and embarking on their day. 

"WOOSH!!"  "SPLASH!!"   "CRASH!"

They rise out of the water like torpedos, fling their massive fins out to their sides, turn their monstrous head, and crash with an explosion into the water, sending bright blue waves and spray flying in all directions!  All day every day we saw these increible displays - it is easy to spot one in the distance, set sail, and head towards the pod to get a closer look.  And to top it all off, much of our exciting view was experienced before the tourist boats arrived (usually around 9am), allowing us to feel completely alone with these giants.

An extra night!
On day 5 we called into base to arrange the reluctant drop-off at the marina, and Steve, the manager of Fraser Escape, told us that the boat wasn't booked in for a few days, and we were welcome to keep it for one more night at no extra charge.  BRILLIANT! 

Our only hesitation was a change in the weather - we had been experiencing 20 knots of SE - SW wind (which is quite windy but manageable) but a southerly change of up to 35 knots was expected around midnight, making morring overnight difficult, and sailing the next day quite unmanagheable.  Steve told us we should therefore bring the cat home to the marina, and we could stay on it at the marina if we wanted to!!

So, like a pair of ritzy millionaires, we steered the cat home where Steve greeted us and 'parked' Orla is her usual spot at the jetty, then left us until the next day.  We got dressed up, walked along the jetty to a restaurant on the esplanade to enjoy a divine dinner (we enjoyed a platter of entrees, then Jase had the eye fillet steak with seafood sauce, and I had the chicken with seafood).  Then, we strolled back along the jetty to our 'home' for the evening.



Bob Fossil, eat your heart out


This was one of the most memorable trips of my life. 


And now a word from Jase, who remembers a phone conversation he had with his mum during the trip:

"We woke well before dawn and decided to trawl for tuna.  We gave it a go for a while - the tuna were everywhere, great schools of them jumping out of the water all around us, but didn't catch anything.  Then, a bit later, we could see the whales in the distance so we pulled in our fishing lines and took off in pursuit of them.  They were jumping all around us - their whole bodies were leaping out of the water.  It was awesome!  All the while eating prawns and sipping champagne.....  We said to each other 'what an amazing day it's been!' then looked at the time and realised it was only 7.20am!"  

Our 'average' day on the Orla....

Dawn, between 5 and 5.30am:

Watch the whales:


Play with the dolphins:

Go sailing:


Pose for silly photos:

Blue Steel

Do a spot of fishing and enjoy a quiet beer:

Sunset: