Bowan

Left Airlie Beach and found a local market that had sprung up because a cruise ship was about to send all of its passengers onto dry land to spend money. Looked around the market, into town, bought Bun a hat, onto Woolworths (supermarket), into a camping shop to see if they had a spare catch for our fridge as it has opened while we have been driving and spewed out a lot of its contents.

Bun drove to Bowen where we first stopped at “The Big Mango” 🥭 which is what Bowen is known for. Compulsory to have a mango sorbet ... that I thought was pretty tasteless and would much prefer a piece of fresh mango.

The information centre was not terribly informative. They told us that none of their beaches were protected by stinger nets (stingers = jelly fish). When Bun bought the “Welcome to Bowen” information booklet that we had been given elsewhere and showed them the map showing the stinger nets and they realised this was an up to date booklet .... well it didn’t make any difference as they don’t have any stinger nets. Lots of phone calls were made to ensure that the booklet would be corrected before the next print, but that didn’t help us as we don’t have any stinger suits.

We found a campsite next to a good snorkelling beach. The site was almost empty and we found a great pitch overlooking a sheltered bay. Unfortunately the wind was blowing such that the snorkelling beaches looked like surf beaches. Maybe tomorrow will be calmer?

We walked around the headland, up to the lookouts and back in time to sit on the beach with a beer and watch the sun go down. Why doesn’t everyone carry their house around with them to make the most of these opportunities when they arise?Read more