Tags: Tourism. Travel. Tourist destinations. Queensland. Australia.
THE LONG WAY ROUND TO BRIBIE!
EPISODE 3 By Sabine Von Graz
AGNES WATERS
Hi there, here is just a quick rehash in case you have missed the first episodes from ‘The Bribie Islander’. My short stories are all about our family, Richard my hubby, Ginger our daughter and myself, going on a 15 month trip of misadventure in a “big rig” around Australia, on a mission to find the place to call home.
After getting the Wagon our support car repaired at Woodgate, we were ready to head north to Agnes Waters, a little village next to the town of 1770. As usual, we would pull up with the rig a street before the caravan park and then walk around with the map in hand to check out the allocated space and plot our parking approach for the house on wheels.
Although we booked the caravan park with a detailed description of the 32-foot fifth wheeler, it turned out they actually didn’t have any sites for big rigs and we were allocated just a normal tight campsite spot! Our choice was to shape up our ‘beginners parking skills’ or ship out! However, with Richard heading back to work to Brisbane within the next couple of hours, we stashed away our urge to run and hide and gave it a burl.
We had to ask all the surrounding neighbours to move their cars, which made a lot more sense once they saw what was coming around the corner. By some miracle, we managed to squeeze into the spot with one wheel off and one wheel on the slab and just enough room for the slides and annexe. – What a relief, where is that Schnapps! Richard chose a ‘red bull’ instead and once he was on his way back to Brissi, Ginger and I had time to check out the surrounds.
Shell Kangaroo
It turned out that Agnes Waters lies on the last surf beach when heading North, which is the reason for the prolific surf school and their daily ritual, showing up with 18 – 30 daily students lagging their boards past our caravan park. While still on the dry sand, huffing and puffing and trying to master how to jump on the board, they receive a serious lecture by the fit surf instructors.
This is then followed by lining up for hours in the cold water waiting for their push onto a wave …leaving behind their instructors with their motivational screams and gestures. All this inspired my ‘Logo Painting for Agnes Waters’ with our yellow Kangaroo surfing the found ‘seedpod’ waves! Worn out by this site, Ginger and I decided to get creative instead, with a glue gun, making a shell Kangaroo to mirror our yellow mascot roo. Although we tried to be careful, we ended up burning our fingers really badly… actually so bad that Ginger was clinging to a chilled bottle of wine all night!
Surfschool
Having moved from a big house into the confined space of a caravan caused a few restless nights for Richard. One night, after he kept us awake with his snoring for hours, I decided to wake him up. I wanted to shake his legs as he could not hear me, however, in the darkness I could not see him and all of a sudden he was screaming and his hands were waving around my face and I thought where did those hands come from?
It turned out he swapped position for the night and I was shaking his head instead! It was funny and scary at the same time like some sort of Exorcist experience!
KINKA BEACH
Tired or not, the next day was ‘moving day’ and we were heading to Kinka Beach about 16 km south of Yeppoon. As a family run caravan park, it had heaps to offer – including a couple of swimming pools, amazing toilets with led lights and a trendy bar for Happy Hour, all across from a great walking beach, although swimming could be a challenge as the water only goes to knee deep forever.
We settled in next to a small lake, making it a must to watch the ducks, swans and frogs for breakfast, lunch and dinner. These however were not the only animals at Kinka Beach caravan park as the owners also had a 2 meter pig, an emu called Martin, a couple of ponies, fish, dogs, guinea pigs, cockatiels and last but not least peacocks, which loved to frolic, sit and sh… on Richards shiny black Dodge!
But this is nothing compared to the christening by the Bribie pelicans when driving over the bridge. As we say in Austria, it’s your lucky day if a birdy blob gets you! The more pelicans Ginger counts when driving by, the happier we are and even the Dodge does not mind. Although this is the end of this episode, I hope you can join me in the next edition of ‘The Bribie Islander’, when we head North to Clairview on ‘The Long Way Round to Bribie’!
Martin
Omelette(left) and Kinka Beach Frog(right)
Other Articles
https://thebribieislander.com.au/touring-travel-australia-bowen/
https://thebribieislander.com.au/touring-travel-australia-clairview/