Rick and Rae's Travels: Fri, 28th to Sun, 30th October

It rained during Thursday night and we woke to an overcast and cooler day on Friday. We drove approximately 120kms to a place called Seventeen Seventy which is right on the coast about 500kms north of Brisbane and almost exactly half way between Gladstone and Bundaberg. We had a look at a caravan park there which was very busy and decided to head back a few kilometres to Agnes Water which is another lovely spot right on the water. The park here was busy too, but had a better 'feel' about it and we were lucky enough to secure one of only three sites that were left. Shortly after getting set up, a young Japanese couple pulled into the vacant site alongside of us. We spent the next half an hour being amused watching them trying to figure out how to set up their brand new little tent ... they obviously had no idea! Eventually, it all got the better of the Wrecker and he (along with another camper) decided to give them a hand. After free camping with only the water in our tanks for four days I had some serious washing to catch up on during the afternoon, but we found time for a beach walk later in the day.

We had a resonable night's sleep on Saturday night although Rick said he heard shouting in the street at about 4am. Agnes Water is a really popular tourist destination and we were surrounded by resorts and holiday rental homes. We also had a lovely park area next to us which seemed to be popular with young people at night. The day before we left Calliope River, I pointed out to Rick that one of the rear tyres on the Navara didn't have much tread left on the inside edge. Rick had a close look at the tyres and decided that we would need to purchase four new ones right away. He made some phone calls and it looked like we would need to stay at Agnes Water until Monday as it looked like we would probably be able to have new tyres fitted in Bundaberg on Tuesday. Once that was organised we had a bit of a drive around to get our bearings and found a seafood shop where we bought some prawns for lunch and some fresh Atlantic Salmon for dinner. Later in the day we walked on the beach to cool ourselves down a bit.

On Sunday morning we thought we would go down to the beach early for a swim. When we got there we were shocked to see the brown water and greenish/yellow froth and slime everywhere. We were informed it was coral spawn and advised to swim much further down the beach where the water was clearer. We walked a long way down the beach in the burning hot sand but decided the water there was still too yucky to swim in. We decided not to walk back over the hot sand, so we headed over the dunes and walked back through the small township of Agnes Water. Once we cooled down again we went for a drive to the nearby settlement of 1770 Beach, driving past some of the new housing and resort developments along the way. We drove up to the 1770 Lookout which looks down over Bustard Bay ... so named by Captain James Cook after shooting and eating a very tasty bird that looked very much like a Bustard.

We had lunch at a lovely restaurant overlooking the calm waters of Bustard Bay and then walked the boardwalk along the foreshore. Once again, we then headed back to the van for a relaxing afternoon.