Snorkelling with Turtles to Sapphire Fossicking!

We waved goodbye to the family and set off on our Outback odyssey, starting with a morning tea stop at our friends Cathy & Rob’s in Brisbane to borrow their camping fridge, only to get a phone call from my brother to say we’d left a vital piece of the trailer equipment behind – oh dear – not a good omen! Fortunately, the quick thinking Rob knew where we could get a replacement, and so coffees finished we set off again. First stop Bundaberg – home of the famous Bundaberg Rum, and the southern most point of the Great Barrier Reef. It was also our first time getting the camper-trailer set up, and we were very glad we’d had a trial run in my brother’s garden,once up it was very snug and homely and the met with the boys approval.

We had an early start that first morning, to catch a flight in a small 14 seat prop-plane from Bundaberg airport, flying about 80kms east to Lady Elliot Island, a coral cay island on the Reef. It was an amazing sigh
t to see this tiny island appear in the blue sparking ocean, with water so clear you could see the coral formations as you came into land on the island’s grass-strip runway (a first for me). Ben managed to get himself prime position sitting next to the pilot!

Lady Elliot Island is renowned for its eco-credentials and protection of the reef, and for us the highlight was snorkelling with sea-turtles, manta rays and the vast numbers of beautiful coloured tropical fish. It was the boys’ first time snorkelling in the ocean, and it was a little choppy, so we were so proud of them when they jumped in and went for it. The lure of seeing so many fantastic sea creatures they might never see again this close was too hard to resist, and it was a truly magical family experience. After a lovely lunch, we took a walking reef tour with one of the island guides at low tide in the coral lagoon that surrounds the island, picking up and showing us the beautiful blue starfish, weird green hares, abalone, sea cucumbers and pointing out the highly poisonous stonefish that also inhabit this stunning eco-system.

After an exciting take-off across the bumpy grass, we flew back to Bundaberg to have dinner with a couple we met on our Tasmanian trip, Janette and Bevan, who invited us for a BBQ at their lovely home on the banks of the gorgeous Bundaberg River. They boys sat on their pontoon trying to spot platypus while the steaks were cooking.

Of course, we also had to visit the Bundaberg rum factory, an interesting experience as you aren’t allowed to enter if you had any electronic or battery run equipment on you for fear of igniting the alcohol, even having to take off watches! It was decided to make rum here to use up the spare molasses created as a by-product of the cane sugar refineries (the main local produce). The odour of fermenting rum molasses is pungent, both smelling & tasting like burnt treacle, but our favourite part of the tour was in the bar afterwards trying out the different blends. I was quite taken with the Chocolate Rum Liquor, and had to have a little lie down later that day!

From Bundaberg, we drove north to the Town of 1770, named for the date that Captain Cook landed here on his first expedition to Australia (and after Botany Bay his second only landing place). We stayed in this popular but undeveloped beach peninsula, on a camping site on the beach for 4 nights. Being school holidays, the site also put on outdoor movie nights for the kids on a large screen (bring your own chairs & popcorn!)

Inside the camper trailer – see the bed upstairs?

It was also a gorgeous place to sit on the beach all by yourself, have a swim or even a skinny-dip – no not me (or Ben!) We had a long 10km beach walk around the peninsula one day, and saw no one else for most of it. Here they also have Larc trips (similar to the amphibious ‘Duck’ vehicles) and our Larc driver showed us just what these ex-military beach landing craft could do, driving into the ocean and up sandbanks with thrilling ease. Ollie even got a turn driving it into the sea, which was highlight for us! Our tour also coincided with sunset, and 1770 is one of the only places in Eastern Australia where the sun sets over water, so it was incredibly beautiful too.

Driving the Larc

We reluctantly left 1770, completely chilled out, for the city of Rockhampton where we took stock of our food supplies, and spent a few more dollars in the camping shop. In particular more bedding as the days are lovely (about 23 degrees), but the nights drop down to about 7 degrees – so quite cold in a tent!

Larc watching at 1770.

Sunset fishing for Ben

Following the Tropic of Capricorn west from Rockhampton took us to our next stop, Rubyvale near Emerald, and the names say it all, this is the Gemfields fossicking country and it feels like the start of the real Outback. The local miners live in ‘humpies’- basically shacks put together from anything spare, usually a bit of corrugated metal, and it doesn’t seem to have changed since the late 1800s. We decided to try our luck and joined a fossicking trip with Keith who’d worked the fields for many years.

We drove to a remote dry riverbed and armed with pickaxes, shovels, sieves and rock washing equipment, we set to work – and very hard yakka (work) it was!   Four hours of digging in rock hard dirt and our reward was 2 sapphires and 3 zircons and very big blisters. The boys were great helping us dig – they got gem fever after spotting the shiny little gems amongst the wash (young eyes are a good for this). 60% of the worlds sapphires are found here, greens, blues and even pinks, unfortunately ours were too small to be of much value but Ollie did find one large orange zircon that we are having cut into an oval. We also stayed in a great campsite here with a nightly campfire and a chat with other travellers – this is how you pick up the best travelling tips.

From Rubyvale our drive across to Longreach via Barcaldine was across great flat scrub land, but was marred somewhat by the amount of road-kill lining the highway, there are literally thousands of dead kangaroos in various stages of decomposition lining the side of the road; there’s obviously too much for the carrion to deal with. Not being used to this we found it quite disturbing and almost macabre. The road trains here are responsible for most of it as they are often 3-4 trailers in length (up to 50 metres long with 50+ wheels), and they barrel down the highways at 110kms per hour and stop for nothing. When driving you always give way!  The driving is quite easy, the roads are long and very straight with the heat shimmer that makes them look like they are covered in water. Ben’s gotten quite good at the Outback etiquette of acknowledging oncoming cars with a lazy hand raise, which shows how little traffic there is on these roads.  So ahead of us is many more km’s and hopefully a bit more of a taste of Outback life.