NORTH QLD ADVENTURE - DAY 30 - BOWEN.

Initially we had planned to do quite a bit of sightseeing around Bowen, but I think we are still feeling the after effects of our last two big days in Townsville.  This morning, I wanted to give the van a good clean, vacuum and mop floors, wash the sheets and towels, and just generally get housework done so the van felt fresh again…

Whilst I was at the clothes line hanging out the washing, I noticed a familiar van in the checkout section of the park.  On closer inspection it turned out to be Fay and Chris.  Had a chat to them for a couple of minutes with the promise to catch up a little later.

I did catch up with them for around an hour, where they shared some of their photos with me of their wanderings over the previous couple of days around Ayr and Homehill.  We have never stayed at there, usually just driving through, but after seeing their photos, will make a point of spending a couple of nights there on our next trip north.   We organised to catch up for dinner this evening around the pool at 6.30pm, and I then left them to have their chilled out day at the park.

Steve and I could easily have stayed put all day also, but we did need to drop into Woolies to pick up a few supplies so in the end, just after we had the left over pizza for lunch we took off to explore some of the beaches in Bowen.

 

Leaving the caravan park we drove along  Golf Links Road and then onto the Queen’s Beach esplanade where we drove until we came to Gray’s beach.  The area around Bowen is very dry at the moment… no nice green parks at all and the huge granite boulders are everywhere.  They certainly add character to the beaches with their massive slabs of rock that continue out into the water.

In lots of ways these beach areas of Bowen remind a little of Denmark in Western Australia, except that Denmark has a lot more rain and is a lot greener.  Along the esplanade we came across a stunning mural of a little boy with his spade painted on the side of some holiday apartments, so I made Steve stop so that we could get a photo of it.

We finally found a park in the shade at Gray’s Beach.  Gray’s Beach has obviously been eroding away as we noticed that it has been sand bagged, presumably to stop the erosion.  We walked out onto some very smooth granite rock to take photos of the beach before doing the walk along the rocks around to Coral Bay.

This is where the main boat ramp in Bowen is located.  There were a couple of men fishing off the rocks and we watch an aboriginal man casting his net for bait fish.  He was quite a master at casting and we enjoyed watching him. 

Heading back to our car we then drove back to the Horseshoe Bay turn off and heading to Horseshoe Bay to check this little beach out.  This one was perhaps my favourite with some lovely impressive rock formations on the beach.  There was also a good climb to the Rotary Lookout which was situated above Horseshoe Bay and would have afforded spectacular views of the coast line.  As it was early afternoon and the heat of the day, we decided to leave that walk also until the cooler months of the year. 

 

 

We did however, spent a hour or more enjoying the beach, and scampering over the rocks here, taking photos, and just enjoying the very pretty surroundings.   From here I really wanted to go back to Rose Bay and check it out as I had been there for a holiday when I was about 16 and I had wonderful memories of my time there.  The house we stayed at was pretty much at the foot of the Mother Beddock, which is a large rock which perches precariously on the hill above.    There almost looks to be a lookout up there these days… Either that or the rock has been fenced off. 

Before we got to the turn off to Rose Bay, Steve found a track heading off to the left high up onto one of the hills behind Horseshoe Bay, so we decided to go and explore it. 

It was quite steep and lead up right to the top of another of the hills overlooking the Bowen Beaches.  We parked behind some resort and went for a walk along the Cape Edgecumbe trail leading down to Murry Bay.  This is quite a walk along the coastline of Bowen and is a Grade 4 walk so should only be attempted by experienced bush walkers.

The walk is over lots of rocks and boulders, but we were only tackling about 750m of the walk and we ended on the beach at Murry Bay.  This is another pretty little beach, although there are a lot more rocks in this bay and as far as swimming goes, is not as nice as Horseshoe Bay.  It is however much more secluded and we pretty much had the beach to ourselves.  Again, we spent time scampering over the boulders and Steve found a colony of coronets which appears to be nesting on a set of rocks here…  Hopefully he got some good photos of them.

From here we walked back to the car and then continued our drive around to Rose Bay.

This beach is beautiful but was more populated with quite a few families down on the beach.  It has a big set of apartments which overlooks the beach and it almost feels like the beach is part of this complex.  We didn’t spend a lot of time here as our afternoon was running out, we still wanted to photograph the water towers and also we needed to do a grocery shop.  I would have liked to photograph the murals we discovered around town also, but time has run out this visit.   We are beginning to feel our age now where sightseeing is concerned and find that we can’t keep going all day every day like we used to.  

 Before heading back into town though we did drive along the Esplanade along King’s Beach until we could go no further.  We found a love set house at the end of the esplanade that had a pretty cool tree deck, so took a photo, although I don’t think it does it justice.

Again this area of the beach had been sandbagged also. 

From here it was straight back into town in search of the newly painted water towers.

 

We spotted them from the CBD and found the road up.  They were fenced off and with the late afternoon sun it was hard to find a spot to get a photo of them.  In the end Steve found a bit of a whole in the fence and climbed through which game him much better chance of photographing them for me…  Hopefully we have got some good shots of them.

 

 

By now it was after 4pm and my goal was to be back at the van park for a swim before we had to meet Fay and Chris for dinner.

We dropped into Woolies and bought the few groceries that we needed to get before heading home.  We arrived back at the park around 5.20pm.   I quickly remade our bed, unpacked the groceries and then headed to the pool where I met Steve.  The water was beautiful, just a good temperature, not to cold to get in, but cool enough to feel refreshed.

 

We had the pool to ourselves for a good half hour and then once we decided to home out, another three couples, arrived to cool off also.  For us, it was off for a quick shower, back to the van to prepare for dinner. 

 Steve took the meat and headed over to the camp kitchen area to make sure we got a table, whilst I did up a cheese platter and got our salads ready.

We spent a lovely couple of hours with Chris and Fay over our meal and departed company around 8.30pm to head our separate ways.  Steve cleaned the BBQ down whilst I carted all our gear back to the van.  We washed up and then spent some time just relaxing in the van before heading to bed. 

Our time at Bowen has come to an end.  I think in the cooler months, you could find plenty to do in Bowen if you stayed for a week.  Tomorrow we head further south, inching closer and closer to home.  We are off to Airlie Beach for three nights.  Off to explore the Whitsundays.  We definitely know that three nights here is not enough either, but home is calling.  We have 4 more nights left on the road.