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| Hello Bundaberg |
Wednesday morning and time to head to our next port of
call being Bundaberg. The wind has
dropped a lot so its another lovely day and we motor out at 17km in 6 knot
winds north. We are now motoring through
a main whale migrating area. Hoping so
much we see a whale or two breaching, so binoculars and camera to the
ready. We see this mighty spray of
water about 600 meters in front of us.
Can you believe that five hours of motoring and we did not see one other
whale. A bit disappointing, especially
as this is the time of year that the whales migrate up north along the east coast to breeding areas in Queensland. Oh well we have another two months on the
water to see one.
Andrew gives his
lure fishing ago as Christie motors the boat along. An hour and a half later and I think having
changed the lure four times, Andrew has still not had any luck at catching a thing
and decides instead its time to go and sit out the front to relax and watch the
water go by and feel that feeling of being free.
We see in the
distance the Burnett River, Bundaberg entrance and head in to fill up again with
fuel and anchor for the night.
Unfortunately we get to the marina to be told there is no unleaded fuel
for boats here so we then have to empty our 5 Jerry cans into the boat, and go
and fill them using the car fuel pumps, making three trips. We have a bit of a laugh with the trawler guys who have just pumped 2000
litres of diesel into their trawler. We
hate to even imagine what that cost them.
Anyway a fuel stop that usually takes us 20 Min's took just over an
hour. As we keep finding out, this is
all a learning curve and at least we had the Jerry cans to be able to do this.
We really can't
believe how much we have both learnt already on this trip. Our knowledge now to what it was in March
when we first moved onto the boat, has increased so much. Its all fun and games as they say.
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| Bottle number 2 |
Left Bundaberg
and motored north in the South Pacific Ocean towards Agnes Water and the Town
of 1770 (Seventeen Seventy). Another perfect day and we are
feeling very lucky as the weather when we were at Scarborough was windy and wet
for weeks and now we seem to be having such calm seas and sunny days.
We get bottle
number 2 ready, this time we use our champagne bottle, so just past Bundaberg
we throw it overboard, again with our details on a piece of paper inside and all
sealed up, wondering who will find it and where it will end up.
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| Whale swimming by us |
Half way between
Bundaberg and 1770 we see a snort of water come from the horizon. Binoculars out and we see a whale in the
distance again. Eyes peeled and as we
head in that direction, the whale is heading towards us. Full of excitement, we watch as two whales that look like a white/pale blue colour just under the surface of the ocean, what a view
to see them swimming by. Then all of a
sudden 6 meters in front of the boat they are playing around us and it seems
they are just as inquisitive of us as we are of them as they hang around the
boat for a good 30 minutes, putting their bodies and tails out of the water and
then swimming down again and then blowing water out their spout hole. Really really incredible mammals, especially
to see them in the wild and so close to us.
They only seemed small whales, but that did not make a difference
to us, they are still great to see.
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| Whale tail |
After lots of
photographs taken we sit back and watch then swim off into the distance.
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| Dolphin swimming by |
Chatting along and
following our trusty Beacon to Beacon book we follow the leads into 1770 and see a
dolphin swim by us. Can this day get any
better.
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| Motoring into Town of 1770 |
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| Sunset at 1770 |
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| Pork dinner |
The Town of 1770 was built on the site of the second landing in Australia of Captain James Cook. The town is only small, but
very quaint and even though both of us had been here before by road and really liked it, it was
nice to see by boat and have a good look around. We went for a walk through the town and along
the beach and then headed back to the boat for some more fishing…….. Still nothing, so instead Christie cooks up a
nice Pork meal to satisfy our hunger.
The following
morning, we are up early and as last night we had had a walk around the towns
campsite and saw the showers were not locked (Usually in campsites and Marinas the doors are locked for patrons only), so this morning we snuck in and
had a shower, oh the running hot water is such a luxury, you don’t appreciate
it enough until you don’t have it.
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| Bustard Head Lighthouse |
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| Andrew with his Flat Head fish |
In the afternoon
we go for a short tinnie ride over to some mud flaps to see if we can catch
some yabbies’ using a yabbie pump, unfortunately no yabbies’ but we do catch
some sort of sea slug, ewww, not an attractive species at all, orange in colour and all slimy to
touch. As we are walking around the mud
flaps with heads down looking around, Christie suddenly turns around to the tinnie
that we have not tied up and sees it floating away with the tide. Andrew turns and runs at full speed along the
mud flaps and dives into the water, what a good save that was (Oh I wish we had
a video camera with us at times like that).
Back home and Andrew pulls a small flat head fish from his line, a
little small to eat but will make good bait, and at least it is a catch.
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