Bargara on a drizzly day - 23rd June

Gone is the idea of Queensland being the "Sunshine State" it has been drizzling all night and stil misty rain in the morning. The best way to deal with this is to put on the wet weather gear and break out the umbrellas. Time to do a walk up along the coast, Trish has her hiking sticks out and looks like she is off cross country skiing but she forgot to take her skis. At least they keep her gammy knee working without pain on all our long walks.

Just up along the beach is Mon Repos which is a turtle nesting site for the endangered Loggerhead turtles. Unfortunately it is not breading and nesting season but still worth a look on the way past. The turtle area looks like it is highly controlled by the National Parks Rangers when it is the correct season. Most of the coast is covered with weather rounded black volcanic rocks but the occasional beach where the turtles come ashore to lay their eggs have pale pink sands.

While sitting on the top of the dune area during one of the brief breaks in the drizzly weather and munching on a manderine Trish said it would be great to see some Dolphins and whales going past. Before I could spit out the last manderine pip she spotted a couple of Dolphins going past. Alas no Whales. At about the 4km mark we turned back for home and we saw some Redbacked Wrens, like the Blue Wrens we have in the west but they have a brilliant splash of red on their backs instead. Very pretty.

We came across some dry stone walls mad from the volcanic rocks. Trish had read about these as they were made years ago by the Karnaka labourers who were press ganged into working in the cane fields in the past. Trish's "feelings radar" was working overtime but she was picking up happy song as people toiled together to build the wall.

We wandered on back past the caravan park to town for a very large Hamburger with the lot. By the time we got back to the tent, with very full stomachs, on a wet drizzly cold day and after a 10.5km walk what better than a "Power Nap" in a warm tent.

Dave