Day 17 - the Sept 13th - Cape Hillsborough to Alva beach

 Day 17 - the  Sept 13th - Cape Hillsborough to Alva beach

At 515 am we railed against our familial body clock to mount a triumphant shuffle 150 metres down the beach. The wallabies and some eastern greys (all females) were grazing peacefully on a mineral rich constitutional of mangrove pods. Volunteers had set up a cordon of soccer training cones to separate tourists from the furry ones. The mangrove pods have trace elements bereft from the local marsupial diet. All the feeders are female, perhaps a practice evolved to balance the mineral thirsty process of raising joeys. 

The sun rose slowly, as we huddled with coffee and cameras, gently shushing the kidlets - Sasha testing the imaginary barrier while Nastya squealed happily, paddling her legs and making clutching motions as if she could manoeuvre through a field of microgravity toward these mysterious furry lumps. 

Thirty-or-so visitors watched them feed. It is one of the few known instances of such feeding, and it was one of the better reasons we’ve ever had for getting up so early. 

A Glorious and wonderful sunrise.

After pack up, we explored a mangrove walk that wove through a number of eco systems, condensed into a 1.5 km walk. We saw crabs, a huge aboriginal midden pile, many birds, butterflies and bugs… 

  

This is a long trip.

We’d had less pre-planning capacity than the last time and the world was now a different place. Travelling during school holidays has been challenging.

We were also out of practice with travelling.

There had been years where M started to twitch if travel plans were not happening while on the previous trip. But now it was multiple years between serious trips. And of course there’s two smalls to manage…

A few weeks in now, Our Pack-up routine was starting to become efficient, but our capacity to forecast where we could drive (and book accordingly) was still not our strong point. 

Put another way:

We meet a shifting set of KPIs, adjusted every ⅓ of a day based on weather, team capacity and care factor. We also bet heavily on the overnight (accomodation) stock market. Most times we make out better than expected, sometimes we bomb… 

At this point we’d banked on a last minute Bowen gem, but forces beyond our control (in the form of a coal mine train strike on top of school holidays) had wiped out every hotel, motel, airbnb, glamping teepee and ‘fold out bed in carport’ for 200km. 

We spent way too long at an “ok” burger joint trying to work out where we could rest our pillows that night, and it seemed the best option was the last cabin at Alva Beach van park. Which after the early start was quite an effort.

Googling the place (as is our practice), Mama found it was a quiet town that had been thrust into the news after two people died on grand final night a few years earlier under questionable circumstances.

After the longer than expected drive, take away from the nearest town, Ayr, was about the only option. It was here that papa was manoeuvring out of a carpark, when a Ute failed to see us, or hear our horn, and reversed into our front, putting a ding in the hood and damaging our lovely new car’s chrome. The ute belonged to a couple of plumbers who were on their way back to Townsville - the driver immediately (and rather casually) accepted fault ‘well that’s what insurance is for, eh?’ barely paused eating to exchange details, and left us to mull the feelings of our day - we nailed a great start, the landing was bit rough - and coming up to 3 weeks on the road, everyone was craving a few days without moving again to counter the nerves frayed from town hopping.