BACK TO BUNDY....

We needed to make the trip back to Bundy to pick up our car.  The part finally arrived on Thursday and it was fixed ready for us again on Friday.  

 We had an early start to the day when we got up a little earlier to check out the Lunar solar eclipse and catch a glimpse of the red moon.  We then caught a taxi down to the local railway station.

catching the train to Bundy

waiting for the train...

On the train

Another adventure

 We caught the early train down on Saturday morning.  It was actually a great trip down and much quicker than our trip home the previous week.  The views are really quite different from the train than when traveling by car and I managed to get a couple of great shots of the Burnett River as we arrived into Bundy.

Burnett River...

Once we arrived, we went straight around to the garage to pick up the car...   Once we picked it up we had a couple of quick errands we had to run before going back to Steve's parents...  mostly had to pick up a chicken from Woolies so that we could have Steve's Mum's famous roast chicken dinner that night...

After lunch we decided to go for a drive to check out the local beaches.  It has been a while since we have visited some of them, in fact it was probably six years and we noticed lots of changes...

We thought we would start our beach crawl by going down to Bargara.  It was a beautiful clear day so on our way down to the coast we decided to detour and go via "The Hummock".  It's official name is Sloping Hummock but to the locals it is just "The Hummock". It is part of a dormant volcano offering  panoramic views around Bundaberg and out to the ocean.  It is the only hill in Bundaberg.
The area surrounding "The Hummock' has a high agricultural productivity, with sugar cane making up most of the farmland, along with small crops of vegetables.   

Views from the Hummock looking out to the Ocean

Rich soil is great for agriculture in Bundy.

Stunning views

 I have been up to the Hummock numerous times in the past but it was only after our trip around Australia last year that I took a little notice of this famous rock up at the Hummock.  I immediately thought of "Dog Rock" in Albany WA that we had come across when we were there last year... The amazing thing was that the tourists next to us up there also through the same thing and that it reminded them of "Dog Rock" also but on a much smaller scale, so we have named her the pup of "Dog Rock" even though she is on the other side of the country...

"Dog Rock" in albany wears a collar...

The dog looking rock up at the Hummock..

She easily looks like a pup to the big "Dog Rock"

Looking out over paddocks of sugar can fields out to the ocean...

Found this letterbox library up on the Hummock as well.   -  What a great idea to share books in the neighbourhood.

 From here we headed on down to Bargara.  This is quite a little seaside community now with quite a few street cafes and restaurants.  Also we noticed that there a several new highrise apartment blocks along the esplanade.  We headed around to Bargara beach itself first.  

Volcanic rocks line our beach fronts

Bargara Beach

 From Bargara we decided to drive around and check out the Basin as we had heard that a lot of work had been done down there on the beach front...  The Esplanade at Bargara also has a great turtle playground for kids which now makes this area very children friendly and a place I would love to bring out grandchildren down too.  

 There is a great concrete walkway all the way from Bargara Beach right around to the Basin.  The whole beach front at the Basin has been up graded with lovely picnic areas, a great children's playground, and relaxing wooden sofas along the water's edge.   Christiansen Park has been updated into a great kids playground. 

Swimming area at the Basin

 From the Basin we drove around to Kelly's Creek, a favourite swimming hole of ours when we were teenagers.  This is a lovely area and beleive it or not there were actually people swimming there....

Bargara Golf Club

Ah some of the memories.  When we were first married we lived next to this golf club,  we would hold all our work Christmas Staff Parties down here.  

Driving across the causeway down in Bargara

We decided to get and ice cream and just sit and enjoy the sea breezes and the view.  It really is a delightful way to spend an afternoon.  There is something about being near water that is terribly calming and relaxing and it was hard for us not to want to spend the rest of the afternoon here....

 After eating our ice creams we decided to head down and have a walk along the beach...

 By now it was after 3.30pm so we decided to to head around to Elliott Heads and check out the beaches there.  Now that was where we noticed the biggest changes of anywhere...
It is a good six years since we have been here and it was almost unrecognisable..  The caravan park down there was packed with southerners up enjoying the warm Queensland weather,  the Kiosk had moved, and the old boat ramp has gone as the mouth of the river has completely changed.  You can now walk out to Dr May Island where once upon a time, the mouth of the river cut it off from the main land....  It is now a massive big sand flat....

The old mouth of the river has completely disappeared.

Dr May's Island in the background...

 From the beach we went for a drive along the headlands....
It almost seems that you can drive right along the beach front now between the beaches, or there is certainly a lot more esplanade to drive along then when I was growing up...

 By now it was getting on in the afternoon,  we had about an hour to sunset.  We were keen to find out where the boat ramp was now for down at Elliott Heads since the mouth of the river no longer came past the old boat ramp and it was now closed....

As we left Elliott Heads to drive back into town, we saw a sign to a boat ramp at Riverview, so decided to take a detour and check it out. 

lovely light at the end of the day...

It is a pity we didn't have a bit more time, as it was fast approaching sundown.  The light is a photographers delight at this time of day....

New concrete boat ramp at Riverview

 We even came across the old gravel boat ramp here also... It was still being used by the locals...

The very old boat ramp

  The sun was setting fast so we knew it was time to head home as Steve's parents like to eat early and it would now be dark by the time we got home....
As we were driving into town we actually stopped to watch the sun set....

 We were amazed to see these HUGE kangaroos in the paddock where we stopped to watch the sun set.  These are the biggests roos we have seen in a long time,  and they pretty much just sat in the paddock whilst we photographed them....  There were several of them, all large but this one was the biggest...

 Then it was home to Steve's parents where we enjoyed a delicious roast chicken dinner.  This has definitely been the boys favourite meal, and when anyone of them are home and are served it, there are photos of their meal sent off to the other brothers. 

Family tradition when we come home... Everyone looks forward to this for dinner.

It has been a great day,  rising to see the red moon, a train trip, and an afternoon near the water.  It almost felt like we were on holidays again.  In fact it made us want to hit the road again....