11 July 2010

Day 301 – Bundaberg, Qld (11 July)

Coastal drive, Elliott Heads to Moore Park Beach

Explored the coast today and discovered some great beaches.  The closest beach is 9kms from Bundaberg city and whilst the coastline is mostly rocky there seems to be a lot of snorkelling and diving spots.  There is an artificial reef about 3kms offshore called Cochrane Reef where they have sunk things like an airplanes (2 mohawks and a 15 seater Kingair plane), a gravel barge a landing barge and a gravel dredge, a water tank, concrete pipes and steel prisms and 2 lightship and an ex trawler.  It is a very popular dive site and over 14 species of fish inhabit the area including wobbegongs, leopard sharks, batfish, turtles, dolphins and manta rays.  To get there you need a boat and off course diving gear which we don’t have but would be a great site to dive.   There are many offshore snorkelling sites that can be reached by scrambling over the rocks but as it is tidal here you need to pick you time and day and today wasn’t a good day due to the low tides and being a little windy.  We found a wonderful place called Elliott Heads which is just delightful and still a quiet hamlet, the beach was lovely.  Another spot we liked is Bargara Beach which has some lovely modern homes and is well catered for the tourist with some high rises, restaurants etc.  Some of the houses back right onto the beach.  We had a look at a home open and the backyard bordered the ocean edge.  The ocean would have been 10m from the edge of the verandah!  It was a 3x2 and the agent estimates it will sell around the $700K mark.  Not as expensive as we had expected.  We had a coffee at a spot called Nielsen Park which is right on the beach.  Today was fantastic about 23 with lots of sun.  Perfect!   From here we went to Burnett Heads which is popular fishing area not as popular or as nice as Bargara or Elliott Heads and the pre-requisite for the guys there seemed to be a tinny (boat and drink) and a beer gut that hangs well over your belt!   Next stop was Moore Park Beach which is a golden sandy beach which goes on and on for 20kms!  Not a doggie beach unfortunately.  We are quite impressed with the beaches near Bundy – didn’t expect to see anything quite so nice here.  Apparently the weather here is fairly moderate all year around and compares with Hawaii and there aren’t the big temperature fluctuations in other parts of the country.  We are quite impressed with Bundy.   There are lots of sugar cane fields around and it seems a lot have been sold off and developed into housing estates.

 

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