Rainbow Beach (Part 1) and Town of 1770/Agnes Water

So, on Sunday 8th March we caught the Greyhound north to Rainbow Beach, the southern gateway to Fraser Island (Hervey Bay is the north gateway point). We arrived to relatively nice weather and the bus pulled up in the tiny little township on the Fraser Coast! It’s really small....there is a strip of local amenity shops (half dozen each side) which leads to the big vast beach. Before the shops is a big football field grass patch and Rainbows three hostels run along side it! We stayed at Pippies and pitched our tent in the garden, so far so good!

We didn’t do much our first day, checked out the beach from the view point and we could tell the waves were pretty big as the wind kept getting stronger!!! Cyclone Hamish is on its way!!!!! We stayed in and watched Casino Royal in the TV room.

It was Monday when the fun and games began!!!! The rain didn’t start till about 8am, so lucky for us our first night in the tent here was dry!!!! When the rain started......it didn’t stop! And there was plenty of high winds!!!!!

Fraser Tours were cancelled Monday/Tues and people already on the island were evacuated and made to leave as Hamish was suspected to hit Fraser on Tuesday evening (however their predictions of the category 5 cyclone and where it would make land were all over the place) Hamish was playing games with the met office as it proved to be a very unpredictable tropical storm sitting 150 miles off the east coast travelling south towards us!

So Monday was a very pointless day! We hung around our hostel (which is the smallest of the three) and then went to use the internet at another......we were sitting there watching the rain fall when Tom and Sophie happened to walk pass (from our outback tour)...so bingo! The rest of the day was filled with card games and chit chat! Very boring!! We had an early night and no knew for sure that our tent was waterproof, thank god because it was given a battering!!!

Tuesday didn’t get any better! It didn’t rain all day but when it did rain it poured down for a few hours! We rang our tour company (from the payphone because there isn’t any reception here!) and unfortunately our guided tour due to head out tomorrow is cancelled and there are no permits being issued for the island till Saturday...due to Hamish and its high winds and waters. Errrrggh, how annoying, our plans were going so well!!! Lucky for us we were able to reschedule for the following Wednesday 18th because we have the time. Lots of people booked to go couldn’t wait and had to get refunds.....Fraser Island is supposed to be one of the biggest highlights of the East Coast, so many people were gutted about missing it....just bad timing I guess.

We didn’t do much today....when it was dry we climbed a big sand due to check out the views and I thought we were going to be blown away.....the ways were massive and crashing along the rocks, definitely a very high tide......the beach looking nothing like the photos we’d seen!!!! Sand was flying everywhere and when we climbed down the back of the sand dune the sand was stuck to us everywhere! Nice stuff!

Rainbow Beach is named after its multicoloured sand that sits on the rocks on the south side. A leisurely walk takes you to the beautiful sandy rocks but we were unable to do anything with Hamish playing havoc! By Tuesday evening the cyclone had been downgraded to a category 4 and was now anticipated to hit the top of Fraser Island and change direction east, out to sea (which is good for us).....its just unfortunate it brings a shed load of rain with it which stopped us from doing anything for a number of days.
Tuesday evening wasn’t too bad, we hung out at Tom and Sophie’s hostel (with their friend Angela) and played cards, had dinner, watched some tv until bedtime. So our Fraser Tour had been delayed a week which ment we had to kill time for 6 days and we both knew we couldn’t stay here any longer.....we’d die of boredom!

So on Wed, we said bye to Soph and Tom (most prob our last catch up) as they headed to Noosa and we decided to head 300km up the coast to the ‘Town of 1770/Agnes Waters) with the plan being to be back in Rainbow Beach for our tour next Monday/Tuesday to leave on Wednesday. The journey took 5 hours and we arrived in the rain just before dusk. There were a few campsites scattered about but because it was getting dark and the place was so isolated we decided to stay at the nearest hostel ‘Cool Banana’s’ (Sophie and Tom gave us a positive recommendation). The hostel was great, big comfy communal area, big clean kitchen and 8 bed dorms....all set within a tropical forest environment, it was just a shame we couldn’t use the hammocks as yet again the rain never stopped!

The town of 1770 is the place where Captain Cook first stopped at when he arrived in Queensland and Agnes Waters is the adjoining town. I wouldn’t call them a town, more like a hamlet.....tiny! There was a few shop and petrol station and the beach! We never made it to the beach and we only left the hostel once to go and buy food....the weather was that bad! I think we watched 3 or 4 films and played scrabble to kill the time!!! We stayed two nights....we were considering camping to save the pennies but the rain didn’t stop and it didn’t help that the 1770 camping site was 6km away and with the town having now local bus or taxi service....we weren’t going to walk there! Anyways it was nice to have a few decent nights in a proper bed!!!!!

We were hoping to ride the Harley Davidson like ‘Choppers’ on a tour around the area on Thursday but because of the rain it was cancelled. Constant weather like this can be a real downer as you cant do anything about it, we just had to ride it out and hope the weather improved sooner or later. (We were quite happy ot have moved our Fraser trip as fingers crossed by next week the weather will be back to its sunny normal self!)

Agnes Waters beach is Queensland’s most northern surf beach and the last beach you can swim at before the boxed jelly fish affect the water (northbound), however like I said we didn’t get to see the beach and according to reception, the cyclone rain has made a right mess of the beach with high tides so there isn’t much to see.....we were trying to kill time before going back down but we were still not getting anywhere!!

So we made a decision to try somewhere else before heading back to Fraser Island......Bundaberg, 90 minutes south of Agnes Waters. A city of fruit picking farms, rum and turtle nesting. It wasn’t a place on our original route but maybe there will be more to do there than here and hopefully the rain might stop...or not! So on Friday 13th (thats two in a row right?) we headed to Bundy! It was also our 6 month anniversary....and we wont be forgetting it either!!!!

Till next time!
xxxxxxx