Day 80 - 84 (April 20-24) - Woodgate

The last several days have been pretty quiet as most of the time we've just stayed here at the caravan park. The weather has been lovely, and there's been no more rain after the downpour we got on our first afternoon here.

The park as I mentioned is quite empty - only one other person has arrived so there's still loads of space, we only see one or two other people around the toilet blocks. We also have a whole washing line to ourselves - there are several Hills' hoists in a block and the end one is just near the back of our van.

 

Each day has roughly followed the same sort of pattern. About every second morning we've gone for a morning run / walk along the beach, followed by a swim to cool off. When we haven't done that, we've normally still gone for a swim. The water has consistently been warmer than what we've instinctively expected going into the ocean, so it's been refreshing but not 'take-your-breath-away' cold.

One morning there were some boats out from shore a little way with some nets catching fish. There were a number jumping around inside the nets. We thought we saw some activity a little way away in the water but weren't sure what it was, but  and the next day we found loads of these fish on the shore with gashes in them. Perhaps a friendly shark had joined the fishermen and nibbled on the left-overs!

There are loads of these birds which hang around the caravan. Not sure what they are but they're quite tame and friendly!

One afternoon, it would have been probably Wednesday, there was some burning off in some scrub nearby which looked quite concerning from the ocean, but turned out to not be a problem at all. For the next several nights we could smell smoke throughout the night which was pretty concerning and very thick the first night we smelt it at 1am! But we've gotten used to it!





Friday we went down to Hervey Bay (pronounced 'Harvey' Bay) to do a range of shopping bits and pieces.

The light bar on the Pajero worked fine, but it wasn't really as bright in the centre as what we'd wanted - it really added nothing to what the high beams provided. So we decided to add a couple of spotlights but we needed more space on the front of the car for it. So I picked up a length of aluminium which would be attached to the existing mount to make it longer, and the spotlights would go onto this.

Making good use of my
Uni farewell gift!

From there we went to BCF and bought the spotlights. As part of my farewell gift from Adelaide Uni I'd been generously given a $100 BCF voucher, so this went on the spotlights. This seemed appropriate, since Adelaide Uni's motto is "Seek Light"! :)

We also picked up a fishing rod and some soft plastic lures. Marc Lucas had given us some detailed tips on how to catch dusky flathead, which are apparently common in the area we're staying. The staff there were very helpful and bore with our ignoramus-like questions!

We also did some food shopping and got a few other odds and ends from Target, Repco and Bunnings. One does learn to batch all these sorts of items into one single big trip when located some distance from a town!

We're certainly enjoying our stay here at Woodgate!

-- Greg