We left Darwin two weeks ago and flew across the outback to Brisbane where we had a one night stopover before driving with Pam and Sandy to their farm near Kingaroy. Kingaroy is 3 hours north west of Brisbane and once home to Joh Bjelke-Petersen. He was a hero to many in Queensland and a long time Premier of the state. I read a book in New Zealand called “Thieves, Rogues and Criminals” and Joh filled out a chapter in that!
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| Inspecting peanuts |
Back on the farm, 80 acres of rich red earth, we admired the peanut crop (almost ready for harvest), tidied up the green house, checked the water and mowed the lawns. Once done we hitched the boat to the Ute and headed for Rainbow Point which is a small peninsula of land directly south of Fraser Island.
We had a holiday home as our base for 12 days and fished everyday except one rainy Saturday. The main target was winter whiting, a small fish but plentiful and tasty. We caught over 500 and these were either cooked in batter and frozen fresh or eaten immediately. We ate a lot of fish. Not many other species were hauled in although we did hook up to a large Spanish mackerel and I did get a shovel nose shark, a huge fish over 2 metres long and taking 30 minutes to get to the boat, but neither of those were landed. I did land quite a nice little Sole which made a change. In addition to the line fishing over the side of the boat we regularly set nets for crabs. We caught a few mud crabs about the size of a dinner plate.
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| poor wee sole |
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| Sandy with a crab sandwiche |
On our rainy Saturday we headed south to the Eumundi markets. This I think is one of the largest markets we have been to, and that includes some fairly impressive turn outs in Morocco, Thailand and Istanbul. As usual I hunted for a bargain but the moths stayed safe. Diana spotted something she needed so managed to spend a few dollars. We stopped for lunch at the Ettamogah Pub on the way back to Rainbow Beach. Unfortunately it has changed hands and had a major refurbish resulting in the loss of the rustic Ozzie Pub that was once depicted in cartoons in the Australian Post.
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| Lunch at Ettamogah Pub |
After our fishing we headed home to the farm once again to freeze fish, get the washing done, check the gardens and mow the lawns. With this all done we are packing again for a 5 night tour of Rockhampton. We will drive up tomorrow morning, about a 6 hour journey and be back again next Saturday to meet Hayden and Sarah when they arrive at the farm in a rental car from Eagle Farm airport.
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| Note kookaburra top of the clothes line. He perched there the entire time Diana hung out the washing. Happy little chap. |
