Dana, Jake and Misty in pure bliss at Kings Beach

Little Misty making the most of the warm shallow water

Misty with the inevitable stick

Trying to encourage Misty to look at the camera



Dana Dog (Kelpie)



Jake with his ball having fun

Val,Ann, Dave throwing the ball for Dan and Jake in foreground

Very warm today, lazy morning , Val and i went around the shops this morning havng agood nose around.

 Bowen is very flat except for the hills in the distance but it has the most amazing wide streets.  The main street is two lanes on each side with central reservations of palms and flowers - reminds me of Invercargill (NZ) a lot - of course there is a vast difference in the weather though.  After lunch we did a tour of the different beaches surrounding Bowen of which there are 7, all different but Kings Beach is the designated dog beach and it is fabulous.  No waves, beaut. boulders and lovely pools for the dogs to swim in, in fact the water felt as warm as our pool does on a warm day in the summer - not stinger season either and the view across the beach to Gloucester Island is magic.

The front beach (Harbour beach and foreshore) along from the c/van park, is the showcase of Bowen having recently undergone a major redevelopment.  There is a sound shell, an interpretive centre commemorating the Catalinas stationed in Bowen during WWII (the landing strip where they used to pull the Catalinas to repair them is still there and still used in part, and of course a display depicting the town's making of the movie Australia.  Lots of picnic areas, a state of the art skate board park and construction of a water park for kids, 20 metres from the beach, located close to the playground and new amenities block will be finished by the ed of this year.  They also have an outdoor rollers skate park and tonight there must have been a session from 5-9pm because we could hear kids laughing and shouting.  The do so much forkids here in town - unlike Tweed and the Gold Coast, because the coucils just bury their heads in the sand............

Yesterday afternoon we also walked around part of Mullers Lagoon which is a 23 hectare picturesque botanical gadens and wetlands habitat centre in the centre of town.  Within its confines is 11.50hectares of water and 11.97 hectares of land.  There are reputed to be 140 different birds found in the area at different times of the year.