We packed up and left the Causeway and the Yepoon area and again began our trek north. We had spotted what looked like an interesting campground at Cape Hillsborough north of Mackay, but it looked a bit too far to drive in one day so we settled on stopping at a little coastal park south of Mackay near Cape Palmerston National Park. The Park looked great, but unfortunately you need a 4WD to do much there so again we are a little stumped.
So we got to this new campground and the owner just said to pick our site. Having only been open for 6 months there wasn’t much shade, but he reckoned there weren’t too many mozzies, so I was sold on the place. We opted not to put the annex up and try a night under the stars…..and then we realized there was no camp kitchen, so cooking should be fun later on.
We headed to the beach, 100m walk through mangroves from the campsite. The mozzies were ferocious there and Lache had 3 on his hat before I roared to run – and that was covered in repellent. Thankfully the beach was fine.
Nick and Em headed for a swim which no joke must have been a kilometer walk the tide was so far out. I stayed with Lachie at a rock pool collecting hermit crabs and helping him chase and try to catch shrimp very unsuccessfully. I got talking to a couple out for a walk on the beach when I heard Lachie screaming hysterically. I raced for him only to see an army of soldier crabs running down the beach away from him – the poor boy was petrified, and I wouldn’t blame him. These crabs are pretty big and a group of them that size would terrify the best of us. I was dying to grab a happy snap, but the closer I got the louder he shouted and with him in my arms clinging for dear life it wasn’t easy. What an amazing sight!!
When Nick and Em returned we tried to located another army, but no luck so we headed to a nearby rockpool to catch more fish and play jumping off rocks. In the end the kids had to be coerced off the beach as I was beginning to freak about getting home via the mangroves and cooking dinner outdoors….
We survived the mangroves, but a large number of crickets got fried or boiled with our dinner. The kids were in the tent while we cooked, but we let them out eventually to chase crickets and look at a huge spider that was disentangling a cooked cricket Nick has thrown in his web. All was going swimmingly until Lachie got pinched/biten/stung by a cricket and went nuts. Only Lachie – the poor boy is cursed.
We had a good chat with the owner of this place about how/why/etc he embarked on opening a campsite and it was quite enlightening. Sounds like a lot of money, work and huge investment before you see much return and I am thinking at $25 a night it may not payback in his lifetime.
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