Smalley’s Beach, Cape Queensborough National Park

Brush Turkey, Smalley's Beach, Queensland

I awoke at just after 6 am and decided to go out with the video camera to see what I could get pictures of.  Enid stayed in bed.  I got some good video (I hope) of the kangaroos eating in the large field to our north.  I then walked around quite a way on the walkway through this protected area, and saw a number of different birds, including a large flock of sulphur cockatoos (which screamed at me and I’m sure awoke the campsite), and some spoonbills.  There were also a few of the magpie geese, but not nearly so many as last night.

It didn’t rain much after we went to bed last night, and it was just partially cloudy as we left and drove north.  We passed many fields of sugar cane, and also fields with brahman cattle.  We stopped at the information building in Mackay to see if we could locate a store with stinger suits.  The clerk said “we sell them,” but when we looked, they had nothing in our size.  We then drove to a mall where we saw a sporting goods store, with the same result.  So we have been unable to locate anything.

As it turns out, it doesn’t matter for this campsite anyway, as there is nowhere here you would be able to swim.  We drove north of Mackay about 20 km to the turnoff to Cape Hillsborough National Park.  We followed the road for a way and Enid said “why don’t we go into Ball Bay, it’s shorter.”  So we turned off the road, and then she said, “there’s a camping reserve there.”  That triggered my memory that we didn’t want to go there, as I recalled reading about it on the Internet and remembered that I hadn’t thought much of the description.  Since we were almost there anyway we drove on, but weren’t really able to locate anything that looked remotely worthwhile.

Motorhome at Smalley's Beach, Queensland

We drove back, and made the trip out to Smalley’s beach.  The last part of the road is very narrow gravel road, and at one spot there was a low overhanging tree.  It looked very marginal for clearance, so I got out and looked at it carefully.  It was ok to go through tight on the right side, and we didn’t have any problem.  Our problem started when we got to the actual campground.  The only way to register here is by the Internet or phone.  There are camping stickers, but unlike Canadian self-registration sites where you just leave money, here there is no way to pay.  Unfortunately, the cell phone coverage here is very poor, so the computer wouldn’t get a solid network connection.  I tried dialing on the cell phone, and could hear the woman on the other end fine, but I was badly breaking up.  Eventually after about 10 minutes I got her through to the point where she had my credit card number, and then the phone went dead as we had just used up the rest of our time.  I did learn that the site we were in (number two) was supposedly occupied, so we registered for number three, and moved the motorhome.  No-one has yet showed up for that site, though someone came in not long ago for number four.

The campsite itself is nice, very simple, with small clearings and a picnic table for each site.  We are one of just three camping units here.  There are many birds: a pair of brush turkeys, where the male has huge yellow wattles, a lot of kookaburras, and a small bird with a bluish-grey chest, perhaps a bar-shouldered dove.  We also saw a pair of eagles out over the ocean, though they were too far away to identify what variety.It was warm this afternoon, and there were some mosquitoes.  We both put on repellent and that kept them away completely.  There were also some large horse flies, but they didn’t bite us.  Enid sat down in the shade by the beach where there was a nice breeze off the water, while I walked around and took video of the birds and plants.  A small wallaby jumped by just about the time I was going to start supper.  Later on we saw it eating just across the road from our campsite.