A Bit of a SE Qld Holiday August 2014 - Day Five - Eight

Wednesday 13th August, 2014

Most definitely wasn't up early this morning.  Toast with avocado or ham, tomato, cheese toasted sandwich for breakfast this morning,along with a well appreciated cowboy coffee. We'll be moving on this morning, according to Craig we need to leave for the sake of his liver - LOL!

Rob arrived eventually feeling a little bit under the weather. Had a bit of a chat and got directions for the road less travelled to get us east to Rosedale, which will take us to our next stop for 4 nights - Baffle Creek Campground.  Packed up everything and headed down to the park to fill up both tanks with good drinking water. Said goodbye to Rob & headed East to Rosedale along the dirt road.

We may have turned right instead of left at the intersection to Rosedale, but it really was on purpose I promise....  We needed to go into Bundaberg to get me some more wine and another bottle of rum.  We stopped at a park in Bundy to use the facilities and took a photo of the gorgeous bridge we crossed.

Gorgeous bridge

Eventually we arrived at Baffle Creek Campground around 2pm ish.  Lovely drive out to Baffle Creek.  It was a bit of a kerfuffle to book in because we hadn't rang ahead and booked a site, which apparently you have to do.....  but what the lady behind the counter was failing to hear was us saying we didn't need a powered site.  Eventually she said nup you can't have a powered site until Sunday so you'll have to have an unpowered site - we said that's all we want, we don't want a powered site, thank goodness that's sorted out. Camping fees paid and we walked with her to the massive un-populated unpowered area so she could point our site out to us, we got a campfire as requested and a tap which is a bonus.

Craig went back and grabbed the car, first we figured out where we wanted to park the camper as it's coming off the car for this stay. We did the complete setup for the first time this trip - camper off, big awning on plus big side awing. I have to say we actually got it right today, galley is facing the right way to be protected from the wind, we have a shady tree at the back of the big awning to keep the western sun out and the fireplace is about 5mtrs away at the back of the galley.  With both awnings up we've got a huge amount of space to move around under, it's great. Will be handy over the next few days as we know there is rain coming.  We even put the wind skirts up around the front and side of the camper, didn't that make a difference with the gale force winds.  It's a ruddy great looking setup if I do say so myself!  :)

Our setup at Baffle Creek

One of us relaxing

We spent the afternoon mucking around the camp, tweaking the setup and relaxing. Watched a family of kangaroos feeding just behind the camp this afternoon.  Pretty cool, one had a joey in her pouch and occasionally you'd see the joey stick it's head out and feed on the grass.

Quite a decent sized group

Mum with joey in her pouch

Joey eating grass from her pouch

We didn't pickup any firewood on our way in, so we'll do dinner in the galley tonight.  Pork Chop, Chicken Kiev, potato rounds & salad - pretty simple I know. We're a bit weary from the late night last night at Rob's, so we'll call it a night nice & early.


Thursday 14th August, 2014

We are up at the respectable hour of 7am and feeling refreshed after a good nights sleep. Full breakfast this morning, bacon, scrambled eggs, toast & coffee.

After brekkie we went for a walk to the back of the property to the boat ramp & Baffle Creek. There's a massive amount of flat land between the office & boat ramp, but it sounds like you can't camp down there due to past flooding issues, it's a shame as it's a nice area.  We also saw a swimming pool and camp kitchen, plus get this  - there's a lawn bowls club house and what looks like it used to be the bowling green, hasn't been used in a very long time and they rent out the clubhouse now as accommodation for groups.  It's a shame, would have been a good giggle having a game of bare foot bowls one afternoon.

Looking toward the boat ramp 

Boat Ramp & jetty

Baffle Creek looking east

Baffle Creek looking west

Looking back toward campground

Office

Camp Kitchen

Exercise completed we jumped into the car and headed out to explore the area.  Had a look at the Baffle Creek boat ramp, park & yacht club (yep I kid you not).  Really nice area, very pleasant to have a BBQ or picnic or fish on the pontoons as some people were doing.  Then onto Rules Beach, parked at the end of the road and walked out to the edge of the sand dune, it's high tide and the sea is very messy & angry today, plus it's blown' that hard the birds are starting to fly backwards!

We jumped back into the car and out of the wind and headed off following the various dirt tracks around the place all the time keeping an eye out for some firewood.  We crossed Deep Creek at one point and it was like crossing into another world.  Very different scenery from the bush scrub we've been driving through so far.  It's a combination of Ti-Tree forests, Fan Palms, some Eucalyptus and grasses - very interested, pretty but at the same time eerie.  We were heading out to Wreck Rock for a look when we came across the Deep Creek National Park boundary sign and as we have the little black dog Boris with us, we can't go any further.  Started heading back to camp via the town of Baffle Creek for some staples (milk, bread etc) and managed to collect some firewood along the way.  Once back at camp we spent the next couple of hours chatting to fellow campers, dog walking/playing and for me writing.

Around 4.30pm Craig decided it was time to put the fire on, we'll be having Thai Chicken Sausages with potatoes, onions, beans, carrots, baby corn all cooked in foil parcels on the BBQ plate over the fire.  It's been a really nice afternoon, very pleasant sitting here listening to music, writing in my journal beside the fire, while sipping on a glass of white wine. There's been plenty of kangaroos, ducks, galahs, blue winged kookaburras and the standard black & white birds all cruising around on the green grass feeding this afternoon.  Kept Boris on high alert the entire time.

It is a beautiful night albeit slightly cool, not a cloud in the sky, heaps and heaps of stars (and no I really don't have the energy to grab the camera and try some stars shots!).  We enjoyed some time sitting around the fire after dinner, then decided it would be a lot warmer snuggled up in our warm bed.

Friday 15th August, 2014
Craig thought it a good idea to go down to the boat ramp at the back this morning at about 6.45am to catch us a fish, yeah right!!  Boris and I stayed in bed for half an hour until the dog needed to get up......

Make a coffee, take dog for a walk & now sit down to continue writing my journal until Craig returns with our breakfast - picture a bit of giggling going on right about now to myself :)  An hour later my hunter returned......  empty handed and thongs covered in mud - yuk!  He put on the cowboy coffee and we had muesli for breakfast instead of fish.  We're off to investigate another dirt road today and pickup more firewood (although by the looks of this mornings sky & the fact we've already had some passing showers, a campfire may not happen tonight - time will tell).  Craig decided he needed to find out what little township he could see across the other side of Baffle Creek, so off we went on an hours trip to find out.

What town I hear you ask, well it was Winfield & Rocky Point.  Both were very cute little townships.  It's time for lunch now, we drove 20klms south on the highway and had lunch at the Avondale Tavern which is perched on the side of the road all by itself.  Good lunch, now it's time to head back, grab some firewood and see what's been happening back at camp.

Gotta say it's getting a little nippy this afternoon, breeze is quite cool and it's drizzling - you know that annoying drizzle that is just enough to stop any outside activity being enjoyable and make it a dreary cold day.  We grabbed early showers to warm up and thought about dinner.  Since we're still full from lunch, we might just have some spag bol leftovers.  6pm and it's stopped drizzling finally, so Craig's getting the fire going to heat up the leftovers and to sit next to and keep warm.

Dinner is on

Spag Bol leftovers & Garlic Bread

It's drizzling again

Rain at least held off to have our dinner & boiling the water for a hot milo.  It did start to rain afterwards, so sitting around the campfire was cancelled.  Instead we squared away the camp in preparation for a night of rain and headed to bed.

Saturday 16th August, 2014
Holy Mother of God the heavens opened up last night!  We had rain dripping in on the corners of the tent and through the zipper join on the annexe, which dribbled down the window onto the shelf at the bedhead.  Craig stopped the dribble at the bottom of the bed on my side by putting one of those super soaker cloths in the spot where it was pooling on the outside on my side of the camper and we put a little bowl under the end of the bow at his feet.  It just kept raining and raining and raining and got heavier at one point, then to mix it up a bit, early this morning the wind blew in, it sounded like a freight train.

Awoke this morning around 7am to a bleek, miserable, overcast day.  Still drizzling and a bit of a breeze.  I would refer to sleep last night as interrupted!  It'll be interesting to find out if anyone knows how much rain we had here last night.

It's funny you know watching people emerge from their tents/caravans after a night of heavy rain, perusing their surroundings, and makes your heart warm when people start asking "how did you fair last night? Did you stay dry?" and lending a hand if someone needs some help.  It's just wonderful to see that in this day and age.

Bubble and squeak leftovers this morning for breakfast (should be interesting) with toast. Had another passing showers while we ate.  Did some washing this morning, seems nobody washes when it's raining, so washers & dryer were not busy!  We'll have to go for a drive today to charge the Hilux's 2nd battery as we plugged it into the camper last night and drained it flat by this morning (Craig thinks the 2nd battery is cactus anyway and thought he may as well cycle it a few times by using it at night the run the camper).

Is this typical of a bloke or what, Craig was going up to the amenities so I gave him a couple of gold coins and asked him to see if the washing machine was done, if so please transfer clothes to dryer.  He came back with his chest puffed out gloating about how he made money using the dryer, can I do that.....  apparently he put the 2 x $1.00 coins in that I gave him, pressed the button and 2 x $2 coins came out - thought he was a legend he did, Laundry King I was told!  My suggestion to him at this point in the conversation was to be quiet or since he is such a legend in the laundry he can have the job permanently!!!  quickly slinked off didn't he.

We headed off about 11am to have a look around Agnes Water & 1770, as we haven't been there since 2004.  We stayed at the 1770 Campground back in 2004 on our way back from Cape York, it was busy then but we were there at the end of school holidays - yuk!  Me oh my, well hasn't it changed, Agnes Waters has certainly grown up, more developed & definitely busier.  1770 is still lovely and a lot quieter, it has had a lovely cosmetic facelift with walking paths, gardens etc., right along the foreshore.  We also stopped in to look at Workman's Beach campsites.  Nice amenities & electric BBQ's, individual numbered campsites that had very little grass, no campfires, can't see the ocean from your campsite and would probably be thick with mozzies & sandflies looking around.  For us, if we were in the area we would stay overnight but that's probably it.  This is just our observation & opinion, we have not stayed there.

We can't escape the rain today, it's like a blanket going from light showers to rain.  We had lunch at the Fish n Chip shop in Agnes Waters (we had fish n chips at the same shop in 2004).  $14.00 for a seafood basket and it was really nice & quite a good size (big enough that boy was not hungry afterwards).  Headed back to Baffle Creek, may as well be at camp & dry rather then driving around on the wet roads.  We have noticed a large Police presence around this area the few days we've been here, don't know why.

We decided to support the local businesses on the way a bit more and dropped into the Baffle Creek Flood Inn for a drink.  Boris was allowed to sit on the veranda with us.  We checked out what properties were sale afterwards, mixed bag there. Telly-hoe then, onward to camp.

Yep it's still raining here too :(  Boris is not enjoying the rain, not really good dog days.  Don't think we'll be having a campfire tonight looking at the weather, which will be a shame as I'm making a nice Lamb Curry with rice and of course poppadums.  I'll need to get it simmering very soon, so might be confined to the galley, I'd much rather be doing it on the tripod over the fire.

So it's 4pm and I'm resigned to the fact I'm cooking in the galley tonight as the showers are still coming through in waves, started to prep my Lamb Curry while Craig was chatting to a couple of Grey Nomads who have a Boston Bulldog that Boris played with earlier - lovely couple.  When he finally came back, he looked at me in the galley and disappeared inside the camper. Now Lord only know why because I most certainly don't (the challenge maybe, inner child - can you see where I'm going with this yet.......  Yep, he popped back out from the camper proudly wearing his offshore sailing wet weather jacket and off he went into the rain declaring "I'm going to make us a campfire, so you can cook our curry on it tonight Girl". What do you say...... "Righto then dear off you go, I'll just continue on here for the moment then".

I's gonna get this fire going

Even in the rain

Well you might be saying about now "he's got no hope", I have to tell you then he did it. Passing showers, dumping rain but he got the camp fire going, so the tripod went on and the camp oven was hung.  Must have scared the rain off eventually with all that determination, it hasn't really rained as much.

Camp Oven on the fire.

Check out the steam coming off the lid
from the rain

Such dedication!

Dinner was lovely and appropriate on such a dreadful evening.  Got the dishes done and it bucketed down, so rather then sit around the campfire we sat under the annex watching the fire for a while, before heading to bed.