Beyond Brisbane

From Brisbane we drove north to Rainbow Beach, which is named for the brightly-colored cliffs rising behind the narrow beach. This small, busy town on the Coral Sea caters to campers, fishermen, kayakers, surfers and beachgoers. Before 1969, it could only be reached by boat. After the road was built, the name was changed from Black Beach to Rainbow Beach (link).

Rainbow Beach

The bands of colors in the dunes are ancient sands brought to shore by waves, blown inland by winds and stained by organic matter and minerals. At 120 m (400 ft) high, the vegetation-covered dunes are among the highest in the world. The dunes are covered by a eucalypt forest, except in an area known as Carlo Sand Blow. Here, the strong onshore winds have broken through the vegetation covering the dunes creating a dish-shaped eroding face – a sand blow.

Looking down on Rainbow Beach from Carlo Sand Blow

Rande at the edge of Carlo Sand Blow looking at Double Island

The prevailing winds carry fine sand inland burying progressively more vegetation on the dune. The bare trunks of a few skinny trees sticking up through the sand are all that remain of the previous forest. Captain Cook described and named the sand blow in 1770, so it could be several thousand years old. A lightning-caused fire may have started the sequence of events leading to the sand blow (link).

Rande next to a scribbly gum (eucalyptus) on the Cooloola Great Walk

Scribbles are made by larvae of the scribbly gum moth burrowing in the bark

On the inland side of the dunes is a Great Walk in Cooloola Recreation Area. Great walks are Australia’s best long-distance (3 days or longer) hiking trails (link) and a focus for guided tourism (link). Cooloola is a 102-km (60 mi) from Rainbow Beach south to Noosa. The trail passes through a rainforest with a canopy dominated by squiggly gums (eucalyptus). The tall rainforests that developed on the dunes are not known to occur anywhere else in the world (link).

Four-wheel drive truck leaving Rainbow Beach

Towing company rescues a broken truck on Rainbow Beach (this had to be an expensive tow)

With the right vehicle, driving skills and good timing, you can drive south from Rainbow Beach to Noosa 100 km away (known as the Great Beach Drive). We were in Rainbow Beach during the week-long 30th Rainbow Beach Fishing Classic. I visited the evening weigh-in several times to see what people were catching. They give awards for the largest fishes caught from a boat, caught from the beach and caught by kids.

Surf fishing at sunset on Rainbow Beach

Fishing contest weigh-in: unidentified wrasse or parrotfish (l) and cobia (r)

With a protected estuary on one side and open ocean on the other, the Inskip Peninsula Recreation Area north of Rainbow Beach is popular with caravaners (campers). We were told that, over a holiday, there could be more than 500 caravans (trailers) in the park’s 3 km (2 mi) of campgrounds. Caravaners need a permit to camp at state and national parks, but there are no assigned campsites; it’s a “first in, best placed” system (link).

Inskip Peninsula and Pacific Ocean from Inskip Point

A roll-on roll-off ferry, which Australians call a barge, takes vehicles from Inskip Point to Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world. Trucks have to cross 100 m of deep, soft sand between the end of the paved road and where the ferry lands. Some of the 4-wheel drive trucks buried themselves up to the frame before reaching the ferry. Fraser Island was listed as a World Heritage Site in 1991 as an outstanding example “…of significant ongoing geological processes, biological evolution and human interaction with the natural environment, and “…superlative natural phenomena, formations or features” (link).

Ferry to Fraser Island

Fraser Island and the coast from Inskip Point south through Rainbow Beach to Noosa (Cooloola) comprise the Great Sandy National Park. The sequence of coastal dune-building in the Cooloola region dating back 500,000 years is the oldest in the world. The Great Sandy Region is an important tourist destination and tourism is becoming its most significant industry. In the past, sand mining and logging were significant contributors to the region’s economy, but in recent decades the communities have challenged the government to protect the region’s natural qualities and values (link). In 2000, an estimated 1.2 million people visited the area (link).

Truck buried up to the frame at Inskip Point

I was photographing several large wading birds that Rande had spotted among the low dunes. Their heads were bobbing as they quietly called among themselves. A man in his 60s, tall and slim, barefoot wearing shorts and a tee-shirt, approached and asked us if we knew what they were; at the time we didn’t. We chatted about traveling and what had brought each of us to Australia. David, a semi-retired doctor and teacher of chiropractic medicine, was caravanning nearby. He invited us back to his camp for tea. The birds turned out to be beach stone-curlews, also known as reef thick-knees. They’re found along the coast and on islands in northern and eastern Australia, and are uncommon everywhere.*

Beach stone-curlews at Inskip Point

We sat under the awning of David’s caravan and talked for several hours. He’s smart, charming and inquisitive, and we fell into an easy camaraderie. He was born and raised and lives on the South Island of New Zealand and went to medical school in Iowa. While there, he traveled extensively around the U.S. with his mates. We told him about our plans to caravan the South Island and he told us to bring a map on our next visit. We returned a couple days later. Ever the gracious host, he put a kettle on, rounded up some chairs and we had coffee and biscuits while we chatted. He drew a tour of the South Island on our map, indicating roads to travel and places to visit, and said we should stop at his brother’s caravan park at the south end of the island.

David and his caravan at Inskip Point

Like most of the campgrounds in Australia, there are no assigned spaces. You fit in where you can, so campers end up quite close together at popular campgrounds especially during holidays. A “ute” (sport utility truck) pulling a caravan passed by twice while we were chatting. The driver decided to squeeze into a space across the way, but the trailer was blocked by a low branch. David retrieved a hand saw, which he carried but had not used, and gave it to the older couple; the man cut down the branch and backed his trailer into the spot. The woman came over to return the saw and joined our chat. From the time we spent in the campground, it appears that caravaners are a friendly, helpful bunch. Even though they’re transient (spending a few days to a few weeks as neighbors), they rib and ride each other like old friends. David introduced us as his friends from America. He told us that he planned to return to New Zealand in November and invited us to visit him and park our caravan in his yard.

Bargara across from the beach

We left Rainbow Beach traveling north to Bargara, a lovely seaside village on the Coral Coast. The town attracts tourists, but there is no beach to drive and only a few caravan parks nearby, so it feels more like a normal, suburban, seaside town. My plan was to make my first dives in Australia in Great Sandy Marine Park, which stretches 150 km (90 mi) from Double Island Point south of Rainbow Beach to Burnett Heads north of Bargara and three nautical miles offshore.

Launching a boat across the beach at Bargara

One afternoon I drove up to the overlook on The Hummock, the remains of a volcano. I could see agricultural fields (mostly sugar cane), residential areas around Bargara and the Pacific Ocean. These words are written on the plaque beneath the sign, “The Hummock is the weathered and gently eroded remains of a small basaltic volcano that was active approx. one million years ago. The lava that erupted from the Hummock was very hot and fluid, and covered the area between Burnett Heads and Elliott Heads, resulting in the basaltic boulders which line our shores…” It’s 20 km (12 mi) from Burnett Heads to Elliott Heads.

The Hummock looking toward Bargara and the Pacific Ocean

On a trip to Bundaberg, a small city divided by the Burnett River about 10 km west of Bargara, I stopped at the only dive shop in town to get information on local dive spots. The shop runs dive trips to several boulder reefs off rocky points near Bargara separated. The reefs are separated by large, U-shaped sandy beaches. The dive runs trips when conditions are good, but the reefs are shallow (less than 8 m, 25 ft deep), which I can easily reach by free diving (holding my breath).

Barolin Rock south of Bargara

We visited Barolin Rock on a Sunday and the water was crowded. A group of scuba divers swam around the point on the bottom towing an orange surface buoy. Six snorkelers, including a father with two children, explored the reef from the surface. I talked to two snorkelers from New South Wales getting ready to enter the water; it was their first time diving Barolin Rock. I returned during the week and had the reef to myself. Coral density and diversity were highest in the deeper, offshore parts of the reef where sedimentation was minimal.

Corals at Barolin Rock

Corals at Barolin Rock

I saw my first sea snake at Barolin Rock – an olive sea snake over a meter long. Its small head and slender fore-body are well adapted to its hunting style – poking its head under boulders and into crevices among the corals to prey on small fishes, fish eggs, shrimps and crabs. It is Australia’s second largest sea snake (up to 2 m, 6 ft) and the most common sea snake off Queensland. It lives on coral reefs and shallow coastal habitats down to 55 m (180 ft). Like most sea snakes, the olive sea snake gives birth to live young (viviparous); males reach sexual maturity at 3 years and females at 4-5 years. Gestation is 11 months and females probably reproduce every second year. They can live for 15 years (link, link).

Olive sea snake at Barolin Rock

Olive sea snake hunting at Barolin Rock

Sea snakes are air-breathing reptiles with one cylindrical lung that runs almost the length of their body. They supplement air-breathing by respiring cutaneously – oxygen diffuses from seawater into the blood and carbon dioxide moves in the opposite direction. Sea snakes can remain submerged from 30 minutes to 2 hours on one breath. There are 32 species of sea snakes in Australia, 14 of which have permanent breeding populations in Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Relatively little is known about the ecology and population dynamics of sea snakes, especially in coral reef habitats (link, link).

School of stripeys (Kyphosidae) and two striped barracuda (Sphyraenidae) at Barolin Rock

I followed the sea snake for 15 minutes repeatedly diving and taking pictures from a meter away; the snake ignored me and continued hunting. Sea snakes are among the most venomous of all snakes, but they tend not to be aggressive towards divers. The guy running the dive shop in Bundaberg said he’s accompanied divers who “thrashed” sea snakes with their fins when the snakes came too close and the snakes just swam away. None of the Australian sea snakes are listed as threatened, although there are concerns about the status of some species. They are protected under several Australian and Queensland laws, so direct harvest is prohibited, but over 100,000 sea snakes are estimated to be caught each year as bycatch in fish and shrimp trawl fisheries off eastern Australia where mortalities can be 20-40% (link, link).

Storm waves at Burkitt's Reef

White-bellied sea eagle

I dove at Barolin Rock and Burkitt’s Reef before a massive storm took three days to move west to east across Queensland. There was flooding farther north with some places receiving 400 mm (16 in) of rain in a matter of hours. I walked along the shore the first morning of the storm in the wind and rain, and 1-2-m (3-6-ft) surf pounded the shore, which trashed the visibility for diving, but was good for surfing. The only marine birds I saw were a couple of boobies and one white-bellied sea eagle, Australia’s second largest bird of prey. After the storm, we went to Mon Repos to beachcomb on the low tide; it didn’t disappoint. Rande found seashells and sea glass and, surprisingly, very little trash. Most of the beaches we’ve walked have been very clean.

Surfing at Mon Repos

Surfers at Mon Repos

Mon Repos Conservation Park is an important turtle nesting area north of Bargara. Between November and March, it supports the largest nesting population of loggerhead turtles (300-400 females) in the South Pacific Ocean. Mon Repos, which means My Rest in French, was the name of the homestead in the 1880s and now a national park (link).

Mangroves at Mon Repos

We made several daytrips into Bundaberg and small towns along the coast. Twice we visited the Botanic Gardens in Bundaberg, the highlight of which was bird watching in the middle of the city. A group of large, noisy swamphens approached us looking for handouts when we got out of the car. The runoff from the rains filled the lakes and flooded the trails. Hundreds of plumed whistling ducks were crowded onto shrinking islands. The highest branches of the trees on the islands were filled with pied geese and white ibis.

Swamphen at Bundaberg Botanic Garden

Plumed whistling ducks at Bundaberg Botanic Garden

Parents brought their children to feed the ducks from a boardwalk near the parking lot. It quickly became a multispecies feeding frenzy. Black ducks, dusky moorhens and Australian pelicans were the first to the carbohydrate feast. They were joined by short-finned eels up to about a meter long. The birds were quicker to the pieces of bread, but the eels were persistent and came up to the shore with their heads out of the water to be fed.

Short-finned eels, Pacific black ducks and Australian pelican at Bundaberg Botanic Garden

The eels are common in lakes, ponds, rivers and streams. When they mature, they swim down the rivers and migrate up to 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) out into the deep waters of the Coral Sea off New Caledonia to spawn. Their larvae drift with the currents into coastal waters where they metamorphose into elvers (small, transparent eels) and migrate up rivers and streams where they live until they reach maturity (males at 14 and females at 18-24 years old) (link).

Pied cormorant in the rain at Bundaberg Botanic Garden

White-faced heron at Bundaberg Botanic Garden

I drove north from Bargara to Burnett Heads to see the port, but the road was gated and I couldn’t get in. I visited a small, public marina with a launch ramp on the south side of the Burnett River up from the headlands. I was photographing sailboats in a storage yard behind the chandlery when an old, mustard-colored Toyota Landcruiser pulled up in front of the sailboat with a for sale sign. A man my age climbed out of the truck and walked over to me. He was graying and wore a company uniform shirt. His name was Warren and he asked me if I was looking to buy a sailboat; I said no, but I liked his Landcruiser. It was over 30 years old and had 250,000 km on a six-cylinder diesel engine.

Marina at Burnett Heads

He had just heard Donald Trump’s convention speech and I was the first American he could talk to about it. He thought Trump focused too much on fear and violence and said that Australia recently elected several candidates like Trump to their Senate.  He was afraid for Australia if Trump were to be elected. I told him that a lot of Americans felt the same way about their country. He said that, like the U.S., Australia has a class of voters who are attracted to demagogues. He wished me a safe trip and went to work on his boat.

Volcanic boulder beach at Elliott Heads

Dr Mays Island in the Elliott River

We drove south to Elliott Heads and had lunch by a beach littered with black volcanic boulders. Dr Mays Island near the mouth of the Elliott River is closed to public access from September 1 to April 30 because rare marine birds, like the beach stone-curlew and sooty oyster catcher, nest there.

Round Hill Creek near the Town of 1770

We took a day-trip north to the Town of 1770 (the official name of the town is Seventeen Seventy) on Round Hill Creek. It was the site of Captain James Cook’s second landing on Australia in 1770. (His first landing on Australia was at Botany Bay, now Sydney.) Cook, born in 1728 in Yorkshire, England, was a naval captain, navigator and explorer. In 1768, he commanded the first scientific expedition to the Pacific Ocean. In 1770, he “discovered” and charted New Zealand and the Great Barrier Reef off Australia’s east coast on the HM Barque Endeavour. Cook’s second landing was at Round Hill Creek on Bustard Bay. Under instructions from the King George III, Cook claimed the east coast of Australia for England in August 1770 naming it New South Wales (link, link). The town holds a Captain Cook 1770 Festival, including a re-enactment of the landing, in May of each year (link).

Looking across Round Hill Creek to Bustard Bay from Round Hill Head

Monument to Captain James Cook above Round Hill Creek

Cook’s monument was dedicated in 1926 at the site where one of his crew carved the date on a tree. Cook anchored his ship in the inlet sheltered by a rocky headland. The inlet was named Bustard Bay after a bustard, or plains turkey, was shot while replenishing the ship’s supplies. The regional park on the headlands is named after Sir Joseph Banks, naturalist on the HMB Endeavour. An assistant to Banks wrote a description of the bustard that was the first technical report on a land animal in Queensland (link, link).

Australian bustards

The Australian bustard, a large bird (0.7-1.6 m, 2.5-5.0 ft, high) with a 1.5-2.0 m (5-6 ft) wingspan; males weigh up to 15 kg (33 lbs) and are larger than females. They’re described as moving “in a stately walk with head held aloofly high, bill raised.”* They have to taxi to take off. Because of hunting and declining habitat (grasslands, light scrub lands and woodlands), bustards today are rare or extinct in developed areas, but common away from settled areas.

Rainbow lorikeet feeding on eucalyptus flowers in Bundaberg Botanic Garden

Everywhere we’ve been in the coastal Queensland, we’ve seen and heard rainbow lorikeets, small, green parrots that are common in woodlands, swamps and around cities and towns in eastern Australia. They fly quickly in small groups with a piercing call and have brush-tipped tongues to feed on pollen and nectar in flowers. 

Rainbow lorikeets foraging on the ground near Bargara

At night In Bargara, they roosted in the tall Cook pines along the main beach; their calls were cacophonous. We watched a pair foraging under coastal she-oaks near Bargara, and witnessed what could only be described as a tender wrestling match.

Rainbow lorikeets (click to enlarge)

Next stop – the Great Barrier Reef.

*G. Pizzey. 1980. Birds of Australia. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. 460 pp.