McGowan's Beach - day 4

Friday 19 July 2013

McGowan’s Beach

Up at 6am – it was a cool morning with heavy dew on the ground and the tarpaulin on the trailer being quite wet. We had an early breakfast of cereal, coffee and raisin bread toast. Rob and Lindsay headed off fishing at 6.30am while Paul checked out the internet. The ocean conditions were flat calm with very little wind – however whilst the winds and tide was all good for fishing, the fish were not biting. I gave up first and decided to go up to the office and check to see if I could get a connection to the blog. I managed to do this so decided to update the blog right back to the time that we left Derby. This took quite some time as the connection was slow, kept dropping out and I found it difficult to download photos, so initially I just posted text. When I reduced the photos down to email transmission size I had more luck so started posting these as well. By the later posts I was able to add photos to the text but by then I had had enough of looking at a computer screen. Paul believed that the camp was using a sat comm. or microwave connection. We were charged $5 for 24 hours so in my books that was a pretty good rate.

By midday it was very hot so we sat in the shade and enjoyed a cold Solo soft drink. We had this with cold curry and rice leftovers as well as the leftover cold chicken curry from several nights earlier. It seems that we are the only ones without any alcohol in what is supposed to be an alcohol free area. Even the caretaker and his indigenous brothers have a regular session at the office every evening. The night before the State of Origin football was on so the locals were up at the office watching the game live on satellite TV from about 4pm. They must have had a good night because nobody ventured out of the office until after 9am the next morning. The fuel truck arrived today and we saw the liquid supplies being unloaded into a trailer and taken up to the office. We now know where all the money goes. Of course all the campers here as well have their own supplies of beer and vino – they just do not make it obvious when they are having a drink. It was just us honest folk who were the odd ones out!

In the afternoon Paul strapped up the water tank on the trailer – his mind had been working overtime for several days trying to figure out how to make it operational again. Well he did it in a short time and also applied some sealant in conjunction with the strapping. We shall see what happens tomorrow when we fill it with water after we arrive back at Drysdale River Station. Nearly everybody in the camp with a trailer has a tale of woe with regard to their water tanks – most have or have had a split seam or a hole in the tank be it plastic or stainless steel. The more expensive trailers have baffles fitted within the tank to reduce the pressure and water movement when travelling on very rough roads or they have two water tanks with one smaller plastic tank fitted to the upper part of the trailer.

Paul and Rob wanted to have a look at Honeymoon Cove, the alternative to McGowan’s Beach, so we took a drive out there this afternoon. It is only about 8km in distance. Honeymoon Cove is the original spot that most campers stayed at when they visited the area in the early years. The sites are owned by two indigenous families and we are told there is no love lost between them. Over the years Honeymoon Cove is supposed to have been run down, especially the ablutions, or as we have been told, so after word of mouth we decided to camp at McGowan’s. After having viewed Honeymoon Cove, I believe that we made the right choice. McGowan’s is more picturesque as somebody several years ago planted grass, trees such as palms and mango’s and made an effort to plan the sites with edging for the lawns as well. The ablutions do not get cleaned at McGowan’s – it is the only camping site that I am aware of that the campers do the cleaning and pay the privilege of doing so, including providing their own toilet paper. The one positive for Honeymoon Bay is that they charge $15pp whereas McGowan’s charges $20pp per night. The only thing provided at McGowan’s is that you can buy a cold can of Coke for $3 or ice for $8 a bag. You can also get an internet connection for $5 a day. Honeymoon Bay campsite is on the side of a hill without direct views to the beach although you can drive down there but you cannot camp on the beach. We noted that several campers were camped there despite what the sign said. The campsite was also very dusty with no grass or landscaping – it was all natural bushes. So yes we got the better of the two sites. As far as fishing goes, no one site is better. We did not witness anybody catching fish off the beach but we were very aware that anybody who went out in a boat into deeper water came back with some very large fish mainly Spanish mackerel, snapper or shark.

Honeymoon Beach

Honeymoon Beach

Honeymoon Beach

 

After we returned from Honeymoon Cove, Rob and Lindsay went fishing to a different location so distance from the beach. Unfortunately while conditions for fishing were idyllic, we did not catch any fish. What a bugger! Anyway that evening Rob cooked up his two fish – he filleted them and coated them with flour before pan frying. We ate the very delicious fillets with tomato and beetroot. There is nothing better than eating fresh fish. After dinner, we continued on with the second part of the movie Hindenburg which ran for a further two hours. A great movie with lots of subplots and plenty of action. Cheers.

  

McGowan's Beach sunset