CHECKING OUT jENNY LIND & PANCAKES...

When our children were younger we would go camping as a family at Pancakes, which is near Bustard Heads.  We also used to run a fishing camp for Scripture Union at Jenny Lind and the wonderful Mergards who owned the LARC at 1770 would take us all up each Easter Time...
Our kids have wonderful memories of our holidays at Jenny Lind and the visits up to Bustard Heads Lighthouse... back in those days,  the lighthouse was not in the pristine condition it is today.... vandals had been through there and trashed the place.  It is nice to see that it has now been restored and people are able to take the a sightseeing trip with the LARC to discover the beauty of this part of the Queensland coast...

Part of the LARC experience is a spot of sandboarding on these amazing sand dunes....

The LARC up at Bustard Heads Lighthouse

It has been wonderfully restored - so different to when we use to visit 20 years ago...

Lightkeepers House at Bustard Heads....

Bustard Heads Lighthouse

Sunset at Bustard Heads....

 If you are ever visiting 1770 or Agnes Waters,  I highly recommend you take a day trip up to Bustard Heads on the LARC.  Well worth the money..
 
Well for probably 15 years we used to camp at Jenny Lind right on the beach both at Christmas time and Easter,  what wonderful experiences this was for our children... today it costs to stay there... almost $400 for a two night three day stay...  I must admit it is a piece of paradise tucked away from the cares and troubles of life....  How blessed we have been to have had the experiences we  have had over the years....

Jenny Lind Creek

 It is still pretty primitive,  they call it Glamp Camping...  This is what it looks like today..... 

Camping at Jenny Lind..

Glamping at Jenny Lind....

 One of the things our kids loved doing at Jenny Lind, was the sand boarding down the sand dunes...
They have some amazing sundunes here where you end up in the drink at the end....
We also did quite a bit of tobogganing in the water around here also...

Sandboarding at Jenny Lind.....

Well it is many years since we have been up there and a friend of Steve's was keen to check it out as the boys often talked about it, and he had never managed to make a trip with them.

They decided to camp at the family house at Turkey Beach, and get up at some ungodly hour like 3am to make a day of it exploring Jenny Lind and then Pancakes.  The tide has to be just right to be able to do a trip like this, so they needed a weekend where there was a very early morning high tide, so that they could came back in on the high tide again, later in the day...

They left Rocky just after work on Friday afternoon to drive to Turkey so had an early night there and then were up and gone by 4am.  It was a good three quarter of our hour's drive into the boat ramp but they made it.

Jenny Lind was their first port of call...  You only have a small window of opportunity tide wise to get in and out through all the mangroves.  They also wanted to drop a couple of crab pots in on  their way through as well...

Castaways Glamping Experience at Jenny Lind

 The boys decided to stop off and check out our old stomping ground.... they didn't realize that it is now private property and you can't just wander around there anymore, as Castaways have a lease with the Commonwealth Govt to use the land for their paradise experience, so they were unable to have a good wander around... Pity....

 After having a good look around, they high tailed it out of there and headed back to Pancakes to fish and check out where we used to camp around there....

Lunch on the beach at Pancake....

Anchored at Pancakes

Dragging the esky up the beach....

 When we used to camp there, there were fresh water springs that we used to go and collect water from...  It seems that these springs have now dried up.  The boys went looking for them but couldn't locate them.  I remember that they water used to flow down through the rocks, and onto the beach and out into the ocean.  We would dig a big hole in the sand so that we could scoop the fresh water into buckets to take back to our campsite for bathing and washing our hair...

 The spent the late afternoon fishing the incoming tide and actually managed to catch a good feed of fish... Unfortunately there weren't too many crabs around and they came home with nil....

Some of the days catch...

 It was quite late by the time they got back to Turkey.  The high tide wasn't until after 7pm and as it was an extremely high tide, they had to wait for an hour or two before the water went down sufficiently for them to be able to get the car down to the boat ramp to pick up the boat...  It was well after 10pm by the time they got back to the house.  Tired but happy... They had a great day...

Definitely a sleep in the following morning.   They weren't it too big of a hurry to head home... A nice leisurely breakfast on the verandah...

Breakfast on the verandah...

 Enjoying some views of the water whilst they enjoy breakfast...

New rails for the verandah...

 After breakfast the boys headed down to the boat ramp at Turkey to fillet their fish before packing up and heading home....

Down at the boatramp at Turkey

After cleaning the fish, it was time to head back to the house, and pack up and head for home... It was around lunch time by the time they left and arrived back in Rocky mid afternoon.   It has been good for Steve to have this time out... Hopefully they will get to do it a bit more regularly....