Bedford Weir Blackwater 18th-25th October

Bedford weir is located 25k north of Blackwater in CQ and is a man made impoundment on the Mackenzie river. There are good facilities for free camping with hot showers, flushing toilets and an onsite caretaker to manage the facility. We are allowed to stay here for 7 days so we will take up that offer. The weir has a permanent boating a ski club so on weekends there is the continuous roar of ski boats ,jet ski & fishing boats up and down the river. We put the crab pots in last night and caught about a dozen red and blue claw so have rebaited and will see what we can catch overnight. We went fishing yesterday but there are many hidden logs and snags waiting for your hook and sinker and we lost a couple before reverting to using the float to no avail.
There are fish in the weir but the water temps are still to low at 22 degrees so the fish apparently don't become active and on the bite until the water temp reaches 24 degrees so who knows when that will happen. Daytime temps are between 36-40 degrees and down to16 overnight.Well it's been an interesting few days. Was talking to Mum on Saturday and she told me that Phil (nephew) was working in Emerald,my sister Sue then txt me Phil mob number, I left a message and within 5 minutes he rang to say he worked just a few hundred meters up the road so as his mobile was cutting in and out the next thing I heard was a quad bike driving slowly passed, and yes it was Phil. He just hopped off his machine and jumped on his bike and come down to see us where we were camped. We also found out he and his mates had the jet boat out on Sunday and we where watching them and not knowing Phil was one of them. Such a small world. We decided to have dinner together which was roast pork,cooked in the cobb cooker, thank you Barb & Lex for letting us try it out. I didn't put the pork on early enough so it was slow cooking so to speed it up we put the cooker in the car and followed phil up to his flat to finish off the cooking. So it ended up being a good night having dinner and meeting phils mates. In the after noon Phil took Warren to his workplace on the quad for a look around then they took Warren for a jet boat ride up the Mackenzie river and ironically the driver off the boat used to live opposite mum and dads old house in Motupipi road, in NZ.

Bowen/ Carmila

Bowen 2nd October
In all the years we have driven pass Bowen, this is the first time we have spend time here and what a lovely clean town. One of the walk ways along the beach front has exercise equipment, push ups, steps ups,weights etc. We stayed at Wangaratta caravan park which is
Located right on the beach front and beside the Golf Links. The next day we went up Flagstaff Hill lookout and what a spectacular view over to the Whitsunday Island. We ended up having fish,chips and salad for lunch and it was so relaxing looking out over the bay albeit blowing a gale. We where very impressed with Bowen township, it's well laid out, clean with heaps of shopping. Something we didn't know was that 90% of all the tomato grown in Australia are grown in Bowen. Driving into Bowen from the west all one see's is row after row of tomatoes for mile after mile.
Carmila Beach.
Next stop Carmila Beach which is about 60k south of Sarina, there are no shops only a BP servo where you turn left off the highway and what a well hidden gem it is. This was our first visit but certainly will not be the last. Been spending most of our days fishing, well I should say feeding fish again would of been cheaper buying from the fisho but we are having fun trying to catch them. It's been great staying here meet a lovely couple from Rocky, Barb & Lex. We all have been going out fishing each morning until around 10am then relaxing the rest of the day then happy hour at 4:30- 6 or 7 then eating dinner together. We have managed to catch the odd small fish but the big ones got away. The first fish I caught I didn't know Warren was standing behind me so i flicked the rod up and the fish got wrapped around Warren's neck.I must say Warren didn't see the funny side of having a fishing line and a fish wrapped around his neck. All I can say he was lucky it wasn't the stingray I hooked up and in the end it broke the line and took the hook as well. Warren had to help me with that one as all my line was heading to PNG. We saw numerous turtles every day in the inlet and they would surface near us then swim gracefully away to surface futher out. On our last day fishing I caught a crab just using the fishing rod but true to form and as the saying goes it got away. After spending a week camped next to our new friends at the beach we followed them to their beautiful home in Rockhampton and spent another 3 days camped on their neighbors allotment. Many thanks Barb & Lex for your hospitality and friendship.

Richmond 16th September

Situated on the Overland's Way,halfway between Townsville and Mount Isa, the town of Richmond sits on the banks of Queensland's longest river the Flinders.
Richmond has the world renowned Kronosaurus Korner where you will find some of the most unbelievable fossils and dinosaur skeleton in Australia. We stayed at the caravan park over looking Lake Fred Tritton which is a great swimming and fishing area for the town and apparently the Richmond fishing Classic had just finished before we arrived. We went fishing the next day and I only caught weed. A young country boy aged about 10 and his cousin were dropped off by his mum for a bit of fishing. What an entertaining morning it was, he was telling us how to catch the best fish, said his cousin had no idea as she was from the city,(Cloncurry) While he was catching little fish for bait for us as well I happened to look down and here's this huge Barra about 80cm swimming past under the wharf we were standing on. And yes we did have our lines all in the water but about 20 metres out from us and you guessed it the barramundi was right beneath our feet. Around lunchtime his family arrived with their jet ski's so no more fishing for the kids. It sure was a entertaining day.
The following day we left Richmond and went onto Charters towers then headed north 40k to Fletcher Creek as it is a free camp.
Fletcher creek is 42k North of Charters Towers and the camp area is very large and it is located on both sides of a fast flowing creek. You can camp either side of the road by the creek and we turned to the right side of the road and picked a good spot and then set up camp and Warren Put the crab pots in the started Fishing for Bream and sooty grunter.
We stayed 5 days and caught numerous fish and each night got good feeds of red claw which are delicious to eat and taste like crayfish. Each morning we had 2 visitors for breekie then they would head off into the thick long grass, then at dinner time they would come back two gorgeous looking red roosters (photo below) and yes I did share my fish and red craw with them and it was really hard leaving them behind.
Thursday 27th September
Left Fletcher Creek and on our way to Funny Dunny which is located 25km south of Home Hill. We had heard some good stories about the camping and fishing there so thought we would give it a try.

Funny Dunny Park/ Bowen River Hotel

Funny Dunny camp 27-29th September
We have heard so much about Funny Dunny camp so thought why not go and have a look at it as the fishing sounded great. Funny Dunny camp is about 25km south of Home Hill and is signposted "Wunjuna" Township, you turn off the bruce highway and head along 15k of dirt road into a very small camp area. Sadly there were plagues of bloody midges that drove us mad at night plus no TV to watch the footie final Bulldogs/ Storms so we made up our minds and left and headed for an old country pub that was in a brochure we had, anyway we had no luck with the fishing so may as well find a better place to camp. We had phoned ahead and yes the Bowen river pub had good telly reception and yes they were going to have the football final on so off we went.
Bowen River Hotel 29th sep to 2nd Oct.
Bowen River Hotel is 32km west of Collinsville which is just over 80km south east of Bowen. We arrived just after 3.00 and found we were the only ones camping at the back of the pub, for $10 per night it was a great deal with hot showers and toilets provided. What a great couple that run the pub Claire & Ringo,it's been a long time since I have called anyone Ringo since my uncle Ring. Ringo took Warren down to the Bowen River and showed Warren the best spots for fishing. Not long after we had set up camp there was this real loud scrapping dragging noise coming from the roadway outside the pub then a vehicle appeared up the driveway a 4wd towing a boat trailer that had no wheel on one side only the rim was dragging along the road. They parked next to us and unhooked the trailer with the boat on it and apparently one of the leafs on the trailer gave way and then the spring hangers snapped off the chassis and it all landed on the road. Once Kerrie and Cory worked out what parts they needed they hopped into the car and headed back home to Mackay to get the parts and they said we will see you guys tomorrow and off they went. Sunday about lunch time they arrived back to start fixing the boat trailer then once it was fixed they would be heading home straight away so they could watch footy at home. It was late afternoon before the trailer was repaired so we talked them into staying the night and watching footy at the pub with us. The pub had a few locals from Collinsville and local station owners coming out for dinner and watching the footy.Turned out to a great night,great company, great food,and great pub. The Bowen Creek Pub was established about 1860, then the building was donated to the National Trust of Queensland in 1974 by Ted Cunningham of Strathmore Station.it lay abandoned until 2003 when it was rebuilt. Such a lovely place for chilling out and fishing,that's on our list to go back some time.