Welcome to Cindy and David's 2016 Adventures
18 Blessing the Fleet, Mingo Crossing, Wuruma Dam
We moved out of the caravan park and stayed in the driveway of the chap who was making an annexe for our van. He needed us to stay there so that he could check it all fitted before we drove off. Worked out very well. John and Gail are a lovely couple who live just the other side of Hervey Bay to the c/park and conveniently close to the harbour where all the action for that weekend was. We left John working away and went off to the "Blessing of the Fleet".
John and Gail's new puppy "Captain" was absolutely the cutest thing! He was full of mischief and kept Gail running around after him rescuing items he carted off. I found him very amusing but I am not so sure Gail agreed with me.
The last blessing of the fleet we attended was in Freemantle, WA, and was the blessing of the fishing fleet. This was blessing the tourist boats who take folk out to see the whales!!!!
The ceremony opened with these two Dragon Boats. Very impressive. After that various whale boats arrived back from their trips to be blessed.
Although we found it a bit odd, I guess H/Bay relies a lot of the tourist trade for their existence.
The group "Sliding Doors" were excellent. Mum, dad and son who could play their instruments magnificently
The inevitable fireworks to finish off the night.
Due to our decision to have an annexe made for our van, our plans to travel further up north had to change so leaving later than planned, we drove up to Maryborough, still not knowing exactly there we were going as we had a few days before we were expected in Maroochydore for our booking there. We decided we had had enough of the highways and would perhaps try out the byways, always an interesting experience. We spotted a place on the map called Cynthia so off we went. We went right off the map and ended up nowhere near there but came across this magnificent lake with a campground, so there we stayed for the night.
Lots of fishing going on, everyone had their boats. In a couple of weeks apparently there is a competition there called Catch a Cattie (catfish??) and they are expecting 400 people! Good luck to them I say.
Lots of fishing going on, everyone had their boats. In a couple of weeks apparently there is a competition there called Catch a Cattie (catfish??) and they are expecting 400 people! Good luck to them I say.
Chowey Bridge built in 1905 for the new railway, now of course obsolete but a brilliant little example of the competence of the time. All the scaffolding for the building of it was wood!
We drove on to Mundubbera to a delightful c/park and set off to explore on our bikes. Mundubbera is at the confluence of three rivers and this is the Burnett. The other two are the Boyne and the Auburn rivers.
We stayed another night at Mundubbera and spent a day exploring the area and found this dam, full of fishermen of course and dozens of caravans parked all everywhere right by the water, no facilities except for a couple of loos, all happy people! We have so far since leaving H/Bay really found the back roads and sometimes the roads almost disappear. Luckily traffic is scarce otherwise I am not sure we would all fit on!