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| A storm moves over the coast towards Tin Can Bay |
We left Bundaberg two weeks ago now during a short weather break. The first few nights we spent sheltering in the Sandy Straits, the area between Fraser Island and mainland. First Woody Island, then Gary's Anchorage at the southern end.
We went for a terrible walk the first night at Gary's Anchorage. The mozzies and midgies were ferocious. Lucky there was a storm coming and we had to get back to the boat quickly.
After the storm by-passed us by, in the first photo, we were treated to some more spectacular sky scenery.
The following morning we woke to the sounds of zinging (the noise mosquitos make around your ears when they're looking for somewhere to land). The mozzies were undeterred by our swiping antics, so we rose to watch the sunrise - and March flies.
Oh dear, March flies are attracted to the colour blue and our seat covers in the cockpit happened to be their favourite colour. There were half a dozen of them reclining on our seats.
Ian managed to swat one of them and swiftly relocated it to our watery surrounds. Well, it looked much nicer there.
We could now enjoy the stillness of the morning.
We checked on the weather forecast and found a couple of low pressure systems which had the potential to turn into cyclones, so we said 'see you later' to our picturesque anchorage and headed the short distance to Tin Can Bay and the safety of their marina.
We enjoyed a week at Tin Can Bay. It's a quiet little town with lots of nature walks to do. There's a long Foreshore bird walk and a shorter Wildflower walk with interpretive signage so you know what you're looking at.
We were impressed with the neatness and cleanliness of the town. Graffiti was absent, public amenities were spotless and everyone was friendly and would say hello as you walked by.
Although we missed the height of the wildflower season which peaks in the spring, there were still a few hardy species which stubbornly flowered through the hot dry summer.
We probably enjoyed the banksias the most as they had all the different flower stages - from bud to dud.
The Swamp Banksia on the right started out with a dark green flower during early stages, changing to lime, yellow, golden, rusty brown, before turning dark brown then revealing its seed pods.
The area around here is known as Wallum country. Wallum being a local aboriginal word for swampy. All these Wallum plants spend a large part of the year in wet boggy soil, but are able to withstand the dry months of summer.
A few more of the Wallum locals.
At this time of the year, there are often many jellyfish. We were told that sometimes in the Sandy Straits during peak season, it seemed as though there were more jellyfish than there was water.
I was quite fascinated by them and spent many hours photographing and videoing them around the harbour. I couldn't resist including a short movie clip of them. It goes for 59 secs and uses 11mb
After a week at Tin Can Bay, we braved the weather and came back to Gary's Anchorage at Fraser Island. We've since learned that it is the safest place to be in bad weather and many boats come here to shelter in the event of a cyclone.
There has been two cyclones in the past week, with another forming in the Gulf of Carpentaria. The first one did a little damage at Great Keppel but that's been the closest one and we had no effects of it on the Fraser coast.
We're waiting for the weather to settle a bit before we move to another anchorage at Fraser Island. Our movements will all be northwards from now, till we get back to Cairns at the end of the cyclone season.
More coming on Fraser Island in next blog.
see you soon
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