Sat, 28th to Sun, 29th May - Quobba Point

Rick drove into Carnarvon in the morning and organised a modification to the lead for the external aerial, while I caught up with some cleaning and writing the blog.  On his return and with assistance from fellow campers, Steve and Kerry, the aerial was mounted on the car and a bracket mounted on the side of the van.  The aerial boosts the signal for mobile phone and internet, some of the time ... it is still a bit intermittent.

Steve and Linda came over for drinks ... Steve told us there was some bad weather on the way, possibly arriving on Monday.  We made the decision to head off in the morning (Sunday) as we were well aware that even with the smallest amount of rain the road into Bush Beach would be impassable.  We didn't want to be stuck there for another week!

On Sunday morning we packed up the van and said our goodbyes to the people we came to know around us.  We suggested to Jeff and Sue who were parked not far from us, that they might be wise to move also.  They have a smaller van than us but were towing with a falcon wagon so they would have big problems getting out if it rained.  They agreed and started packing up also.

We drove into Carnarvon and stocked up with fuel, water and groceries.  We then drove around 55kms to Quobba Point and the Blowholes.  Quobba is a large beach area with limited facilities that cost $5.50 per night per site.  We were amazed to see the assortment of shacks and lean-tos that were set up in among the sand dunes.

We found ourselves a reasonable spot to settle for the night and walked down to the beach so Rick could have a swim.  The water was lovely though a bit rough with a steep drop-off into deeper water.  From the beach I suddenly spotted some small fish skimming across the top of the waves as if something was chasing them.  I then spotted something bigger surfacing not too much further out than where Rick was so I signalled him to come back in to shore.  We were baffled for a short time to know what we were seeing until we realised it was a Dugong.  Dugong only eat seagrasses, so Rick would have been quite safe.

We walked further down the beach till we came across a fellow fishing.  It turned out he regularly stays at Quobba for about six months at a time and he was fishing for shark ... as were several other people further up the beach.  He advised us it wasn't a real good idea to swim where Rick was, as the area was known for Reef Shark and he had seen a six footer cruise past a short time earlier.  We have since heard that Reef Shark are not a problem to humans, but we've decided that any shark is a worry (who do you believe)?

Part of the road back out to the main highway

Some of the shacks and lean-tos at Quobba