Milyering, Turquoise Bay and Mandu Mandu Gorge

Friday 9^th May 2008

Last night was a shocker... at about midnight the wind turned into a gale so the whole van was shaking and flapping for the rest of the night. I lay there thinking we were going to take off a couple of times but the van withstood it all. I did nip out and take down all the washing which was starting to loosen itself and I closed the windward side windows and meanwhile, the girls slept straight through!

Everyone was happy with the pikelets I cooked up for brekkie – so happy that the girls even consented to do some schoolwork. I think it helped that Hannah’s family were out for the day (the two girls in daycare while Lindsay and Richard went out with the whale sharks together), otherwise Katie may have been a bit distracted!

I did some tidying and sorting in the camper trailer and came across our camp shower – yay! Hot shower tonight! I filled it up and did some washing at a tap situated about 1km down the road, just off the beaten track (very bizarre, I thought, but I s’pose if it’s out of the way most people won’t bother using it, thereby conserving their water!). This was necessary because the water level monitor in the van indicated that both tanks were almost empty – we’re not sure how accurate this is and it will be interesting to see how much more we can get out. The power level has been absolutely fine so I guess we can be fairly free and easy with the lights!

After a spot of lunch (more meals in the van – please note!) we headed to the Milyering Visitor Centre where Katie delighted in showing us all the stuff she’d already seen. Then we went down to Turquoise Bay to do the famous Drift snorkel but we were slightly apprehensive because of the gale that was still blowing and the report of a French guy that the current was extremely strong making the visibility very poor.

We decided to do it anyway and trotted down the beach being chewed by horseflies. The current definitely was strong and Katie wasn’t keen but I left her goggles way up the beach so she had to wear her mask and I was deliberately misleading about what I would be doing with her so she put on her fins and stepped in with me. We had a lovely drift with her clinging tightly to me. We couldn’t see too much but I was able to point out enough interesting stuff to keep her distracted from the fact that I was slightly nervous and we came back to shore well before the point where the current can push you out to sea.

Paul and Holly had a slightly more stressful experience because Holly didn’t grasp the potential danger and wanted to do it all herself while Paul was getting his hair off with her because she wouldn’t listen to him so neither of them particularly enjoyed it.

To cool things off a little we headed round the point and had some play in the water. Apparently there is usually good snorkelling in there but today was really shite – almost no visibility – so we just enjoyed the beach instead and lamented the unusually high tides, strong winds and large swell.

Since it was now a little cooler – the wind had changed to south westerly – we went to check out the Mandu Mandu gorge. We knew we didn’t have the time, energy or supplies to do the full 1.5 hour hike but we did do a walk up the river bed to the gorge. The beautiful washed, rounded, pale stones of the river bed were in stark contrast to the vibrant orange of the gorge cliffs and the sea breeze made it a pleasant clamber.

The wind kept up for most of the evening, changing round to a south easterly by bed time. I got out the star chart to try and work out some of the constellations that I was looking at while keeping an eye out for shooting stars (none for me tonight). I will need to get it out again tomorrow to make sure I remember some of them – Corvus, Scorpio, that dog one that includes the star Sirius – see, I’ve already forgotten the names!