Kings Beach - Sunday

 Such a beautiful day - tomorrow (Monday) we leave Bowen and move to Townsville, will be sorry has been great having 5 days in one place and in such a wonderful location.  However, the one thing no-one will miss are the pesky midges/sandflies which appear late in the afternoon and continue to attack until dusk. We seem to have all suffered.

David (looking to the far end of the Kings Beach bay)

Val paddling and waiting to throw Dana's ball

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At last Dana with ball

Misty laying down the law

Gotta bury this

If I can't bury it I'll eat it instead

Will someone come when I call???

Gotta do it this way Dave

Dad here too

Dave and Val enjoying a well earned lunch

This is to prove David is also along for the ride - lunchtime at the campsite:-  after a busy morning around the Bowen beach markets

Misty, Dana and Jake

 The dogs came back plum tuckered out and ready for a rest until the afternoon's excursions down the beach again only the other end of Kings beach today.

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.

Flagstaff Hill, Bowen

Looking across to North Head lighthouse only a km from shore towards Gloucester Island loooming in the east and Gloucester Passage, gateway to the Whitsunday Isles.

Misty and me o/looking the harbour and the c/van park is just behind that - note the picnic setting



This speaks for itself and all the picnic settings up on the hill were made from the milk cartons

 Beautiul cafe right on the top of the hill which has these 360 degree views and has magnificent grounds around it - again the council.....

Bowen was also where the film "Australia" was made in 2007  and the hotel that was used in the movie still has the facade in front of it.

A nice quiet day today getting some housekeeping duties done and just relaxing - so sign off time as it is also past the "happy hour" time.  Sayonara for today everyone.



Pretty girls with lollipop sticks

As we left Holmbush Weds morning, we encountered some road works and David was delighted to see that there was a very pretty, slim girl in her 20's manning the lollipop road stick and then further along another one - what a pleasure that piece of road was.  W as so nice to see no butch looking women or short big gutted men - for a while, however revert to form and the rest of the roadworks (there is a few of them) were the uninteresting men with sour faces - and big guts.....

Stopped at Prosperine for m/tea and arrived at Bowen at lunchtime, we are at the harbour Lights c/van park obviously right opp. the harbour which is very pleasant, not so many Vics. here, more NSW no. plates.  The first people we saw when we were registering was Bridget and Ivan - well, you wouldn't credit it.  They are here for 2 nights and we are here for 5.  Certainly nice to be still for a few days.

We have decided we have no desire to travel around Oz.  The constant moving and stopping o/night and then the 200/300 kms a day is not exciting for us - don't know how people do it and say it is enjoyable.  I would love to go to Rocky again and stay put like the Vics. do or even here.  All these towns are so pretty and their councils are doing up the foreshores and not scared of spending money on making the areas attractive - NOT LIKE TWEED COUNCIL........

General Gordon Hotel, Holmbush, - Tuesday night

The General Gordon Hotel where we spent Tuesday night (upstairs is the wonky balcony and the ladies toilets were right at the end with rooms in between)  Built in 1877....

The carpark at the back of the hotel (our 2 vans at the centre) certainly packed 12 units in for the night

The  cut sugar field at the back of our vans where the dogs had a good run