South East Qld

The Journey Begins…..

30 April 3 May - Toogoolawah, Maidenwell, Maryborough and Amamoor

By way of a shake-down-cruise, we have been wandering about the Brisbane Valley and South Burnett area of South-East Queensland. We have about a week to kill waiting for the wedding of Paul’s cousin, Alys, in Maleny on 8 May. All this is due to us handing our house over to our house minders by the end of April as promised.

Much of this area is well known to us, but it has been a good way to start such a long trip. With six months to complete our anti-clockwise circumnavigation of the Australian Continent we are in no rush. In fact, we don’t seriously get under way until the end of May, following two weeks fishing at Hervey Bay and The Town of 1770.

The Labour Day long weekend has forced us to seek out-of-the-way camping sites away from beach and popular National Parks. Who ever stays the night in Toogoolawah or Maidenwell?

By Monday, the long weekend crowds were clogging the highway home. Cedar Grove Camping Grounds in the Amamoor State Forest was almost empty by the time we set up camp at lunchtime. It is a beautiful spot, but the rain has settled in, so it’s into the books, pre-recorded radio plays and DVDs.


14 May Torquay - Hervey Bay

Early entries in this blog are noticeably ‘irregular’ to say the least. Given that the south east of our own state of Queensland is ‘old ground’ for us, we have had little of significance to report.

Fishing is what the first couple of weeks of our trip is all about. Hervey Bay and The Town of 1770 have been regular winter holiday spots for us for several years now, so why break with the pattern?

Alys’ and Heath’s wedding and the associated social events were fantastic. Our home in the Maleny Showgrounds wasn’t exactly central to all the ‘action’, but we managed ok. Heath is South African and, given that our next big trip is to our friends’ and house-sitters’ wedding in Cape Town, we were appreciative of all the advice and hospitality offered by the South African contingent at the wedding.

Near death experiences are rare in our fairly well-controlled lives…. But, while out fishing in the unfamiliar territory of the mouth of the Mary River, we had a brush with disaster! Nice deep water at the mouth of creeks and rivers can be very productive fishing spots, so we dropped anchor and tried our luck. Immediately, it was clear that we couldn’t get our bait to the bottom in the current because the outgoing current was far too strong. Simple solution; up anchor and off. For once, our anchor actually held in the face of every effort to lift it. With the current increasing by the minute and the anchor actually pulling the side of our boat down, threatening complete inundation, it was time for drastic action! Out with the, extremely blunt, fishing knife and after some tense minutes and bad language… bye bye anchor, chain and 20 mtrs of rope.

Now all this wouldn’t have been so much of a problem, except for the fact that we had left the paddles for our motorised canoe and our life jackets back at camp. If the motor had failed us, we would have had an unscheduled trip to Fraser Island. However, given we’d had our “three things” of bad luck, we chanced it and are still here to tell the tale.

On the fishing front, things have been a bit grim. One large, one medium flathead and a few whiting are all we have taken home all week! Never mind. The weather has been fantastic and the seas calm.