June 1-2 (Day 122-123) - Woodgate to Bundaberg

Today was our last day at Woodgate, so Matt and I went for a morning run along the foreshore while the others went for a beach walk.

Sprinting the last 100m!

Us boys finished off with a morning swim - the water was very calm, and while it was a cool morning the water was quite pleasant.

We got back, had breakfast and did our reading. We've been going through Joshua recently in the morning. The last few days have been looking at what is initially a fairly drab looking list of towns given to various tribes. While there are indeed plenty of names, a chapter breakup is a very helpful start in understanding it all a bit more, as it provides some structure around them all, so you can at least see which sections apply to who.


We found some interesting information about Caleb. He'd of course been one of the 12 spies who spied out the land 40 years earlier, and who, along with Joshua, had faithfully believed with God's help they could overcome the inhabitants of the land in Number 13. Yet because of the faithlessness of the other 10 spies and the rest of the nation, he had to endure 38 years' wandering in the wilderness - something I'm sure I would have been pretty frustrated about. He finally got allocated his inheritance in Joshua 14v6-15, and chose Hebron - a difficult mountain with strong opposition, believing, with the same faith he'd shown 45 years earlier as one of the spies, that at 85 years old he could overcome these giants with God's help. This he did in Joshua 15v13-15. So he'd endured much difficulty for most of his life as a result of the faithlessness of his fellow countrymen, but when it came to Joshua 21 where it was time to allocate the cities of refuge, we find that Caleb's city of Hebron was given as one of the cities of refuge! Surely Caleb would have had to agree to this, but clearly he did. Having cast out the inhabitants of a strong city through his faith, he then gave the city up to be a place of permanent refuge for his fellow countrymen forever - and Caleb was left with just the surrounding villages! What a great example of a Godly person putting the ungodly first, just like our Lord Jesus Christ.

After our reading we packed up our site and headed off about 11:30am and headed up to Bundaberg. While we'd been here for shopping last week it wasn't a proper visit, so it was nice to 'officially' be in Bundaberg again as tourists!

We had various bits of shopping to do again which we got out the way first. I needed a new 12 pin plug for the caravan electrical wiring, as the other one had got knocked off its mounting on Fraser Island, so I got one of these from Supercheap Auto. We then collected some more coffee from Pacific Coffee Co.

After our shopping was done we stopped at Riverside Parklands, near the Burnett River in Bundaberg. Mim and Bek knocked up a delicious chicken focaccia for lunch!

Not bad for camping food eh!

Jude's broken leg hasn't sated
his appetite for climbing (thankfully!)

The kids had a good play on the playgrounds and climbing things. Jude's broken leg last year has certainly not dissuaded his appetite for climbing, even though the thought of that titanium rod-filled right femur still gives us the heebie jeebies at times!

Mother and daughter at their favourite shop!

We wanted to go to the Bundaberg Barrel (where they make Bundaberg Ginger Beer) as we'd been here on our last trip. We got there about 3pm, but found they closed at 2pm. This posed a bit of a problem as we'd intended to drive on further, but after a bit of thought we decided to stay in Bundaberg for the night. This gave the girls a chance to go op shopping! We picked up a few things, including a new top for Bek.

Staying the night at Hinkler Lions Park, Bundaberg

We stopped for the night at a free camp just opposite Bundaberg airport and I installed the new 12 pin plug on the car for the caravan wiring.

One of our neighbours for the night was a very chatty old gentleman, the lovable type you like to chat to, but in whose company you find yourself detained for much longer than you'd planned! In such a circumstance, one usually detects when a story is reaching or has reached its conclusion and plan a way to politely excuse oneself; but this gentleman had a knack for making his conversation morph topic without you knowing, so by the time you realised what he was explaining was in fact a completely new story rather than an obscure adjunct to the previous one, said next story was well underway and your opportunity for escape had long gone before you realised it had been there!

Nonetheless we eventually had our dinner, did our evening readings and got to bed at a reasonable hour.

-- Greg