Lathams News: A RIVER RUN IN THE NEW BOAT....

The weather has been a bit hit and miss this past week, but this morning the sun came out around mid morning, so we quickly packed a picnic lunch and boiled the kettle and filled the flask, hitched up the boat and headed down to the river..

Steve was keen to launch the boat again and get in a little more practice. It is much bigger to launch than his tinny, so he still needs to master doing it on his own. I helped him let the handle of the winch slip which meant it went sliding down into the water. Still a little more practice needed getting it into the water...

Once we got it into the water, we did a slow crawl up stream up under the Fitzroy Bridge. This gave us a birds eye view of the city from the river...

Our Fitzroy River and its tributaries drain the largest area of any of Queensland's east coast river systems, entering the ocean at Port Alma, downstream from Rockhampton.

The Basin's northern limit is beyond Nebo, where the Connors and Isaac Rivers begin. The westerly limit is near Blair Athol and Bogantungan, and the southern boundary is the Carnarvon Ranges which enclose the headwaters of the Nogoa, Comet and Dawson Rivers. The Dawson is a large system in itself, running though Taroom and the Theodore irrigation area, and joins the Fitzroy River just north-east of Duaringa.

In addition to the Dawson River, other major tributary rivers are the Mackenzie and Connors which rise in the eastern Dividing Range and converge about 100 km west of Rockhampton. When heavy rain falls over the vast Fitzroy catchment there is severe downstream flooding at Rockhampton – see that entry for further detail.

The Fitzroy was named by Charles and William Archer on 4 May 1853. The river was named in honour of Sir Charles FitzRoy, Governor of the Colony of New South Wales. Queensland did not become a colony until 1859.

The Fitzroy River (Tunuba) is also famous for Barramundi, pronounced “bardda moon di” by the Darumbal people. This defines the Fitzroy River catchment as the genuine Home of the Barramundi in Australia.

From our vantage point on the river we were in the ideal spot to photograph the beautiful Rockhampton Riverside Precinct, which is situated right in the heart of our city and it also gave us a great view of the new Boathouse Restaurant which is situated right on the edge of the river...

The Boathouse from the River..

Lots of boat craft on the river at the moment

Part of the Rockhampton Riverside Precinct...

The new Art Gallery in Rockhampton

Once back at the boat ramp where we had lunch we could then pick up speed and motor down the river. We decided to go and find a spot to have our picnic..

We probably travelled around 20 minutes down the river when we came across a little channel behind a couple of little islands.. This looked like the perfect spot for us to stop and have a bit to eat...

Steve hooked up the motor guide to act as anchor whilst we enjoyed out lunch..

He also decided to flick a line to see if he could a nibble or two...

Our picnic lunch.. Corn beef and salad sandwiches, a piece of fruit and a drink..

Flicking a line.... no bites though...

We really couldn't have asked for better weather, the sun is shining, very little breeze and the river is like glass... so still and the reflections ae amazing...

The motor guide is keeping us anchored whilst we enjoy our lunch...

Once we had finished our lunch, we packed the Motor Guide away and then took off to explore the Fitzroy River. Our goal was to tr and make it down to the Mouth, which surprisingly enters the ocean closer to Port Alma. I always thought came out near Keppel Sands...

The highlight of the day for me though would have been just sitting and watching the pods of dolphins which were swimming and diving along side us. We came across at least three pods of dolphins

The run down to the mouth of the river took us approximately an hour. Most of the dolphins we caught up with were close to Thompson's Point...

On the way back to the boat ramp, I decided that I would have a go at driving the boat. The good thing about the depth sounder was that it charted our course, so it was petty easy to find out way home again.

Having a dSteveve of the boat...

It was close to 4pm by the time we got back to the boat ramp and then we had the task of trying to single handedly getting the boat out of the water and onto the back for the trailer.

We were pretty fortunate that a guy pulled into the boat ramp five minutes before us. His boat was considerably bigger than ours and he managed to single handedly bring the boat in by himself. It was good to see someone else do it successfully and Steve managed to get it in first time successfully on his own...

Steve managed to drive the boat onto the trailer today...

Once we got the boat back on the trailer we took it for a drive around to the fresh water ski Gardens.. Much easier and quicker to drive it into the fresh water and flush the motor there...