 Innisfail, Johnson River. Original on location painting. 5' x 10'. Artist Kathy Shell. June 2010. Art work is for sale. POA. I am finding Flying Fish Point Caravan Park a great place to settle into for the season, and I am getting to know my way around the nearby town of Innisfail. I joined one of the three gyms, in Innisfail and I am attending it 6 mornings a week after Reg gets back from his fishing and is ready to sit and relax with a book. I am making the most of this free time and wishing we had good fishing, close to our summer home, in Northern Victoria so I could keep up this routine. If anyone knows of any good fishing spots close to Shepparton, Mooroopna, I would love to hear about them. You could add it as a comment here or even share the information in the gray nomad, forum attached to this blog. ThanksJ. Always keen to see your own travel stories and photos in the forum, it is there for you to use, just no advertising, thanks :-). After Gym, I drove to the shopping area and parked opposite Harvey Norman and went on a bit of a shopping explore while I did not have Reg and the dog with me, a sheer luxury for a lady who rarely gets to go out on my own. I wondered around looking at kitchen electrical ware and bought a light weight, electric, large flat, fat draining, non stick grill plate and a very small caravan kitchen sized, rice cooker, and remembered to ask for and get a seniors discount. It is always, worth remembering, to ask for a Seniors Discount. J. I always love looking at laptop computers, they had the Acer Aspire. I have had an Acer large screen monitor in the past and liked it and I used to travel with my big desk top computer and large screen. These days I only use lap tops for the convenience of size and weight, a big consideration when travelling.. Then off to the pet shop, I bought Indigo a pigs ear. When I gave it to her, she took it straight under the caravan, dug a big hole and buried it, lol J 'thanks Indigo’, talk about attracting ants to our caravan. There are several large supermarkets in Innisfail and prices are competitive, and I have been able to buy most things I have needed. Some specialty items you might need to drive to Cairns to get, but most things you will need on a regular basis are in the town of Innisfail and the needs of the angler, are well catered for. Innisfail is the main town for the lovely fishing areas of Etti Bay, Flying Fish Point, Ella Bay and Mourilyan Harbour.  Great sunrises, from the coastal fishing spots out from innisfail.    It has been a fantastic first week for preparing to spend winter here at Flying Fish Point, Caravan Park. Who would have thought that I would have bought my husband Reg a fishing line on Tuesday not knowing if he would use it and he has already caught six fish :-). Nothing like fresh cooked, whiting and salad, for a healthy, breakfast, lunch or tea. Healthy meals are going to be a easy, we will be eating white fish regularly at this rate as Reg is loving the experience of fishing..Sunday tomorrow will also be the day, I have committed to getting out of bed before dawn and to be outside, exercising at dawn. :-) Not too hard as I will be in tropical Queensland watching, the sun rise over a beautiful ocean and my man fishes for our breakfast. What joy. Meanwhile back in Victoria, winter is setting in and one of our daughters, has the job of organizing our car and caravan registration, renewals, fire insurance quotes and all those bills we could not set up as auto deduct from our accounts. Thanks Leanne J, you are a gem.       Reg and I have arrived at the Flying Fish Point, Tourist Park this afternoon and set up for what will be our winter base, for touring, writing and my art. Such a friendly welcome, Reg, Indigo our poodle and I are going to love it here. Our powered caravan site, is a little tropical oasis, the pool to our left, the dog friendly beach directly across the road and a large green oval behind us where pretty faced, wallabies are sometimes seen grazing.  They say the fishing is fantastic here. Reg has never gotten into fishing but if we stay here for winter, maybe this is the time to buy him a fishing rod and try it. I could possibly sit, fish and paint beside him. Innisfail, looked like a pretty town as I drove through it, I will enjoy going there to shop and walk. It is 7 kms away from Flying Fish Point, on the “Great Green Way", an area of outstanding natural beauty spanning from Townsville to Cairns in tropical North Queensland. Innisfail Web Site.  I will be very busy, with swimming, beach running and my writing and painting even if I never leave this beautiful caravan park, but when I am ready to venture out the area has so much to offer including two World Heritage listings. These being the Wet Tropics Rainforests and the Great Barrier Reef. Over 25 tropical islands off our coast, over 12 mainland National Parks, and Flying Fish Point, is the closest mainland access in Queensland to the Outer Barrier Reef Reg has fond memories of the Atherton Tableland and is eager to see it again and I have a good friend Gem in the mountains west of Cairns, who I am keen to visit some time while we are here. I think this will make the perfect base camp for a wonderful winter holiday plus writing and painting inspiration. Attractions, Tours & Things To Do
Reference
Photos below are of our powered caravan site and the oval directly behind us at Flying Fish Point Tourist Park.      Reg and I have just spent two very enjoyable evenings staying here at Palms Caravan Park at 67 Truro Street, Torquay, Hervey Bay Queensland. I chose this spot because it was centrally located in the heart of Hervey Bay and had everything I look for in a caravan park, including a swimming pool. It was close enough to large shopping centres for me to buy a GPS unit at a great price, due to the competitive pricing of shopping in an area with a wide variety of businesses and shops.  My micro sd card was kept busy, filling up with photos from around the beautiful Bay. We walked to the beautiful and calm, Torquay Beach, only two minutes from the caravan park, found it a perfect place to watch the sun setting I think I got my best sunset photos ever.  The caravan Park management and staff I met have all been exceptionally friendly and helpful, provided me with maps of the area and there s an incredible amount of tours you can take from this location. Although we were only staying a couple of nights, this area warrants a longer visit. I would definitely stay here again.  The Palms Caravan Park are booking agents for Frazer Island and whale watching tours and they have a variety of accommodation including cabins and grassy powered caravan sites with a concrete slab, like this one we had.       Last night Reg and I went to dinner on the kiosk deck at Ballina Beach Tourist Park, enjoyed the great entertainment of live music and stunning fire dance performed by Utopianfire. It was a great night. This tourist park has been fantastic for the enormous activities they provide. I am almost sad to be leaving in the morning. I will let the photos do the rest of the talkingJ.           I was asked recently where the 'Endless Swimmer', was, that I love and have spend many wonderful weeks each year swimming in. It is the rappids pool at the lower end of the Katherine Hot Springs in the Northern Territory of Australia. Reg and I usually stat at one og the Family Friendly Parks, the Riverside Caravan Park is at the top of the rise abover the Katherine River and the Katherine Hot Springs. The water is actually warm here, not hot. Very pleasant for exercising :-). I had another enjoyable night out at Ballina Beach Holiday Park again tonight and watched the circus trapeze acts this afternoon here in the grounds of the park. Tomorrow I will edit my photos and show you. We are loving it here.  Tomorrow our Toyota Land Cruiser, Work Mate, Troop carrier, V8 Turbo Diesel car, henceforth called ‘troopy’, goes in for some work to fix the first sign of trouble we have had with it. Great that Ballina has so many servicew I am glad I woke up it was still covered by its three year extended service plan as we purchased it and our Eco Tourer caravan, new less than three years ago. We had best strap on our walking shoes as we could be in for a long day in the town of Ballina and we have our fingers crossed that all the work, can be done in the one day and we are free from Friday onward. There is a Jazz Band here at Ballina Beach Holiday Park, on Friday evening so I think it will do Reg and I the world of good to go out to dinner together and enjoy the evening entertainment provided here in this park. Keen to see the fire show on the Saturday night too.           Reg and I arrived at Ballina Beach Holiday Park. The first thing that struck us was how friendly the management was. This was consistent with the earlier friendly email communication we had had with them. We have set up our caravan in the wilderness area, where there is a large area of green lawn. I spent the afternoon in the shade of a hut working at my computer. Reg set up the awning and shade cover on the Eco-Tourer caravan, I took lots of photos of Reg at work, lol, pretended that that was work, lol :-) and enjoying seeing Reg happy and fit enough to be doing a great job of the set up.  After relaxing and enjoying lunch, then afternoon tea outside the van, we went for a walk though the grounds of the park. The twin swimming pools impressed meJ. Then we went to the beach, a short walk from the reception kiosk. I had my jog along the spotless clean sand. Reg stood watching the anglers, surf fishing and he was impressed at the obvious success they were having.  There is entertainment and meals here from Friday night and over the weekend, it sounds great. A band one night and fire show another evening. I think we will have so much to do and see here. Tomorrow we will look at the dogs off the leash beach near here and there are dogs off the leash trails to investigate. I plan to go into Ballina to shop tomorrow and return on the ferry. I love everything I have seen. A perfect start to the week we will be spending here at south Ballina Beach, staying at Ballina Beach Holiday Park. J       Preparing for The Long Weekend Tour North. 04/22/2010
 The long weekend is approaching and so Reg and I will be moving out of the Caravan Park system for the next few days and returning to the free roadside camps as we travel north to our next destination, South Ballina Beach, where we should arrive on Tuesday. I will be packing the electrical cooking supplies and the water filter jug I fill direct from the caravan parks tap water and changing over to bottled water. Another system would have been to have included, stainless steel drums water tanks under the caravan or car for drinking water. This was an extra option. We do have three plastic water tanks for the caravan, one for the washbasins and showers, the other is gray water to flush the toilet ten there i the black water waste tank. I like to fill, 2 litre cordial bottles with filtered water, for our drinking water, when we are bypassing caravan parks and need to carry our own drinking water, supply. I allow 5 litres a day for the two of us and the dog with a back up of one or more additional, 10 litres, depending, on how far we will be from a water source and for how long. Obviously travelling up the east coast of Australia I am not carrying anywhere near the weight of water as we do when touring through outback NT or WA. So tomorrow, morning I say our reluctant goodbye to beautiful Seven Mile Beach Holiday Park, where we have been staying for the past fewdays and just loving it. Here are some photos of the riverside area of Seven Mile Beach Holiday Park.     Eden, NSW I had a quick change of mind re our campsite for tonight and we came on ahead of our plan, to Eden on the Sapphire coast of southern NSW, halfway point between Melbourne and Sydney. Eden, situated on the deep harbour of Twofold Bay, is a picturesque and quiet town and offers a wide variety of waterway, forest and mountain attractions. As we are members of Family Parks, we checked their book for a dog-friendly caravan park in Eden and chose the Fountain Caravan Park. The drive into Eden from Victoria was as pretty as I remembered it and views of Twofold Bay, as we drove through, were beautiful.  Twofold Bay, Eden.  The Fountain Caravan Park was easy to find, it is located on the Princes Highway, the first park you encounter as you enter the town from the north. As soon as we turned in toward the entrance to the Fountain Caravan Park the sounds of bell birds welcomed us and made us feel we were entering park land. Indeed the park was sweeping lawns surrounded by beautiful tall timbered forest and there were shade trees. The park has unpowered, powered and ensuite sites, we chose a powered site as we have our own ensuit van and the amenities block was one of the best with one thing I do like to see, if I stay at a caravan park, plenty of mirrors. Lol, that is about the only thing I do not have in my own caravan. I had both a very friendly response when I rang ahead to book our site and an equally friendly greeting on arrival. This might sound normal but sadly hospitality in the hospitality industry is not always present and I like to praise it when I find it as I personally think friendly management, is one of the most important assets a caravan park can have.  Fountain Caravan Park, Eden. Lush lawns, sourounded by bushland, shady caravan sites and bird song. Just what Reg and I love.  Photo is of Reg, setting up our Eco Tourer caravan on site ar Fountain Caravan Park, Eden, ready to begin exploring this area, tomorrow. REGION: NSW > Sapphire Coast > Eden. Places to Visit while staying at Eden. Twofold Bay Eden - Wonboyn Lake Ben Boyd National Park flanks Wonboyn to the north and Nadgee Nature Reserve National Parks Regional Office - Far South Coast Region Cnr Merimbula St & Sapphire Coast Drive | PO Box 656, MERIMBULA NSW 2548 Phone: (02) 6495 5001 | Fax: (02) 6495 4137 Mt Imlay National Park provides bushwalkers with spectacular views of Twofold Bay and adjacent mountain ranges. It is a steep track to the summit but well worth the effort. Wallagaruah Forest Drive and Maxwell's Rainforest Walk starts 30km south of Eden at signpost. This easy rainforest walk is accessible for all ages. Lots of great exercise here. Walking along the boardwalk of Eden, the beach and exploring nearby Boyd Town, the historical whaling museum, township. Discover Boyds Tower on the southern headland of Twofold Bay, a massive sandstone tower built by Benjamin Boyd in the hope of establishing his empire in the area, the tower was also used by whalers. Access is from Edrom Road, and there is a sealed walking track with disabled access to the tower and sweeping views along the coast. Lookout Point, Rotary Park and Seamens Memorial Wall are up the hill from Eden Wharf. They offer panoramic views over beautiful Twofold Bay to Mt Imlay. There is a Picnic area, toilets, and playground. Boydtown and the Seahorse Inn, were built in 1843 on the shores of Twofold Bay by an early whaling king whose name it bears. The historic inn has been restored and the ruins of Boyds church can still be seen. More locations to visit on the Sapphire Coast of NSW Cobargo BermaguiBrogo BembokaBega Tathra Candelo Wyndham Merimbula Pambula Wonboyn | Kathy Shell on Facebook  Advertisers, This 160 x 160 advertising space, could be yours. See our advertising page above then contact Kathy to arrange your advertising package. Kathy Shell,
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