Surferdude’s Day Trip to Gladstone.
Recently we took a trip to Gladstone just to give our Hoondai a bit of a run. Well, actually so our daughter could see Bundaberg and Gladstone because, despite having been to something over 40 countries worldwide, she’d never seen those two towns. She’s studying a degree which could offer her employment in that area so we thought it worth a run.
The plan was to do a weekend trip, leaving Saturday early and getting back Sunday night. However, that didn’t happen as we covered a lot more ground than we planned early and actually made the decision about dinnertime on Saturday to drive home. We got home about 10 pm having travelled 1008 klms from door to door.
Now, we’ve seen Gympie (pop. 16,000) a number of times (and a lot more for me during my working career) so we only stopped there for some coffee on the way through. My wife and I find Maryborough (pop about 22,000) depressing and Kylie had spent a weekend there a few years ago. Even when I first started going there regularly for work around the late 80’s the town was stagnant, despite the immense growth in nearby Hervey Bay. Maryborough is famous (?) as the birthplace of the creator of Mary Poppins – and Multiple Olympic hockey player Clover Maitland (who is my wife’s cousin). And we’ve been there before as a jumping off point for Fraser Island, so we made good use of the highway by-pass and kept on going.
Last year my wife and I went to Bundaberg and were both impressed with the fel of Childers. It’s a relatively small town with a nice clean feel to it, a pleasant, well planted and wide main street and neat shop fronts. It has changed and grown since my first trip there years ago when the local dealer took me to dinner at a local pub and convinced me to try the pepper steak. I have to say it was the best pepper steak I’ve ever eaten BUT, I drank three stubbies while eating it. God it was hot!
Childers has a population of only around 1500 people but the surrounding area must be well populated. Certainly there are plenty of farms in the classic red soil region. Cane abounds but there are also fruit and vegetable holdings of considerable size.
Between Childers and Bundaberg there is a massive old timber fire tower which I seem to remember from my school days is (or was) the tallest such structure in Australia. Plenty of softwood plantations around there too.
Now, Bundaberg I like. Massive wide streets, clean, relatively tidy, plenty of historic buildings well preserved and access to lovely ocean beaches at Bargara and Moore Park among others. The town always seems to be alive and with things happening. There are 50,000 inhabitants and the area continues to grow and develop. Oh! And did I mention the rum? Signposts on the approach to town call it the “city with spirit” or something similar. A massive Hyundai dealership in the main street too.
For me the big attraction is about and hour and a half north in the adjoining settlements of “Town of 1770” and “Agnes Water”. This is a beautiful part of the world and I’ve camped there a couple of times and surfed at Agnes once (in a cyclone swell). The camping ground is right on the beachfront on the north side of the headland. 1770 is about 10 minutes north and there are more headlands to the south, one of them home to what must be Australia’s most remote gated community. The whole estate is fenced in and some of the houses are enormous. (You can see them from the beach).
The road in here has only been sealed for something less than 20 years so it’s still a bit of a gem but, bloody hell, expensive as all get out!
So from Agnes Water you drive back towards Bundaberg for about 15 minutes and turn right to the Bruce Highway, coming out at Miriam Vale. From there, Gladstone, plus Tannum Sands and Boyne Island are only a shortish drive away. Along the side of the highway is a sign which advises the best way to stay alert and awake is to play trivia games and they give you a starter question. “What is Queensland’s floral emblem?” Travelling this road twice in the last 12 months or so, with first a son and now our daughter we discovered their education as children was sadly lacking. Of course it’s the Cooktown Orchid. The return trip asks what is Queensland’s tallest mountain. Again, neither of them knew nor had heard of Mt Bartle Frere. One an engineer and the other nearly finished her second degree. Oh well.
Gladstone is good for about 30,000 people with continued growth from new workers in the massive industrial complexes here and the ever expanding port facilities. The enormous alumina plant which processes the bauxite from Weipa on Cape York is at Boyne Island just south of the town.
The Aluminium Refinery at Boyne Island
There is a lookout in town just overlooking the bay and port facilities. Views from the lookout.
Sailing on Gladstone Harbour on Saturday afternoon. Not much else to do as the town shuts down at 3pm
And across the water.
The Lookout.
Followed this out of Gladstone.
To be honest, Gladstone doesn’t do much for me either but my Mum came from here. Her Dad was a local mechanic and also the distributor for Johnson Outboards in the period just after WW2. He moved his family to Brisbane when diagnosed with a serious heart condition, which proved a good move as my Mum met my Dad when he was de-mobbed after the war.
For the information of our good friend Brian (Bumpkin) in Aberdeen, one half of Mum’s family were Patersons (one “T”) and one of her uncles was a Rhodes Scholar. Went there to study Theology and returned home as a committed Communist. He went on to become the ONLY Communist Party member ever of the Australian Parliament. It’s somewhat ironic that my paternal grandfather was a “Keith”, a member of the family whose ancestral home is Dunnottar Castle just south of Aberdeen. So, Scottish on both sides of the family but both sides have several generations in Oz before my Mum and Dad got together.
Anyway, back to the trip. We drove around Gladstone for awhile and considered staying there for the night but decided there was nothing to hold our attention so we set off back south, intending to overnight in Bundaberg. In Gin Gin (hmm? Rum, gin?? What is it about this area?), we stopped for dinner. And realised we were only a few hours from home so we made a family decision to sleep in our own beds. Kylie drove from there to home and I grabbed some well earned sleep.
Pretty uneventful trip home but a great day. Most enjoyable. And Hoondai performed flawlessly all the way with three up and luggage. Plenty of space. Comfortable driving position. And lots of 70’s and 80’s music on the USB stick.
