Remembering Jessica Anne.

How have we survived three years without you?

Settling into Bowen

Last Saturday morning, we arrived in Bowen ready for the next chapter in our lives. KISA had to get his work uniforms sorted out and after that we went to our new place for our weekend coffees. We settled into the Queens Beach Holiday Park in a self contained cabin and unpacked our stuff.
Which kind of left the rest of the weekend free! We drove around the area on Saturday afternoon and got a few supplies, and on Saturday evening, shared a bottle of Chandon to celebrate our new home.
On Sunday, we went for a long walk. Next door to our caravan park is a hill with a water reservoir on top. Amazingly, in this nanny stste we live in, the stairs to the top of the reservoir are not closed off and tourists are actually encouraged to go up and look at the view! I was impressed that the local Shire Council considers us grown up enough to do that all by ourselves.
The view is great and I took a series of photos starting from the north and proceeding east south and west to give an idea of what the area looks like.
This first one is looking towards Abbot Point where the coal terminal is. You can also see the mouth of the river Don and the northern part of the suburb of Queens Beach.

This is Queens Beach residential area.

In the centre of this picture is the Queens Beach Van park where we are staying. If you click on the picture you will see behind the second cabin is our car. We are in the cabin it is parked behind. They are very clean and comfortable, and almost new.

Looking towards Grays Beach and Horseshoe Bay. In the distance is Gloucester Island. Looking towards Bowen and the harbour. Looking west over the farmlands. They grow lots of salad vegetables and mangoes here. Mostly tomatoes and capsicums though.

Back to the north again. Amazing! Even with the standard 4 foot fence around the reservoir, we didn't fall off!

It was very windy up there, had to hold the hat on! One of the nicknames this town has is Blowin' Bowen! This buiding was the Carnie Cattle Co in the movie Australia. In real life I think it is used for a government office.

This was the pub in the movie, it is a backpackers in real life I think. A lot of backpackers come here in the winter to pick the vegetables.

We went for a walk out on the jetty, also used in the film to run the cattle down. It was built in 1867 or so, and some of the timbers look like they have been there that long! It is still quite solid though and again I was impressed we were allowed out there by ourselves..

It was low tide though, bit hard to drown. It is a very big harbour, it was chosen to be the big port of the north, but somehow Townsville took over.

First day of work yesterday, looking spiff in the new uniform!

We are Bowen Bound

Some clever person has scored himself a job at the coal terminal up there. He is pretty excited about the job and the responsibilty of setting up the hardware infrastructure for the terminal and being on the ground for the massive expansion which lies ahead.
We are leaving this Saturday. EEK! We have had a couple of recon trips up there, one two weeks ago for a weekend. We were house hunting and came away more confused than when we went up, but it was very helpful actually. We teamed up with a local real estate agent who drove us all over the place, so we have now a reasonably good knowledge of the area. We stayed the night at Horseshoe Bay, which is one of the prettiest beaches in Qld.

This is the view from our room. We cooked our own dinner and enjoyed wine on the balcony.

One of the advantages of being early birds is we can watch the sunrise occasionally, nice with an eastery sea view.

After much cogitating on the best way to go about things, we decided to rent for a while and practice living like we were paying the huge mortgage we would be paying if we bought there without selling our current place. We will save the differnce in a 6% account. So, we have made an application to rent on a place which has just been built a bit out of town. It is set aways up a hillside so has a distant view of the sea.

And a lovely big front patio, to watch said view and take in the breezes.

It has 4 bedrooms, all air conditioned and a double garage. Bigger than our current place, but it was not possible to get what we have here up there. It will cost us exactly what we will receive in rent so it should amount to much the same. With the pay rise we will be better off. Out of all the ones we have seen for sale we liked it best to, so if we are happy with this position, we can buy it. Like try before you buy, but no committment to.

The biggest adaptation, will be the change in lifestyle.

Bowen has a population about 10000 that is set to grow in the next 20 years or so due to coal expansion. The smaller population is a positive for both of us.

We will probably travel back to Mackay for certain shopping, maybe some medical care, and to visit my family and our friends, though we hope to make some friends here. The same length of drive will take us to Townsville as well.

It is drier and hotter here, though less humid.

It was certainly a lovely day when we were here last Saturday. It was quite warm though..these photos were taken at Flagstaff Hill. There is a cafe up there where we had lunch.

We will keep you all posted though we may not have much internet access for a bit. Lots of Maccas coffee coming up I think, so we can use their free wifi!

A big scary bugger!

Well I guess you have heard that we are facing down one of the biggest cyclones to ever hit this country. It is bigger than Tracy that wiped Darwin off the face of the map in 1974. As a result of that storm however, building standards were ramped up, and most houses can withstand a big storm up to category 4. This one will be a 5, so I really feel for those of our fellow Queenslanders further north. Here we are safe as we are some 500klm away, and they are expecting only a blow in the region of a category 1 or 2 which is scary enough but not threatening to either life or property if we are safe indoors, which we are now. The only concern is storm surge and they are unsure how big that would be. We are safe from that where we are as well. We are in a new house on non low lying ground. Nothing in Mackay could be called "higher" ground!
We have our emergency kit packed in case we have to evacuate. All we need to add is a bag of clothes each and the car fridge, which we won't pack till later, when we have the latest tracking and likelihood of necessity. We have sandbagged and duct taped up the back door. Due to a buiding fault yet to be rectified we get quite a lot of water ingress in this door. It leads to the garage so not devastaing, just bloody annoying.

We have taken the outdoor stuff indoors. The outdoor set is all that is left as it takes up heaps of room. We will take it in when it either gets dark or too windy to ignore. The spa will be ok, we will take in the top as that will blow away otherwise.

Just before midday at high tide, we went to the harbour with a last coffee before we bunkered down. The waves were already buiding and it was already very windy.

Quite a few cars were coming out for a look. The rain is starting now too, they are saying we can expect 600 to 700ml. That will cause flooding, as the river is already in flood from Cyclone Anthony's rain last Sunday.

We are in for a wild ride, will keep you posted while we have power.

Tropical Cyclone Anthony

Last night we hunkered down for our first cyclone of the season. Cyclone Anthony crossed the coast at Bowen, it was only a category one, so just a big blow really. We got loads of rain though, and the river is very full now.
We went to our spot at the harbour to check out the sea. They have closed the ports so all the ships have skedaddled. It was waves all the way to Round Top Island. When it rains with one of these storms it really rains.

The real worry is the big ugly sister forming off in the ocean off Vanuatu. They reckon that will arrive on Thursday..

A Prawn for Dinner

As you know, KISA and I are watching our weight, so the other night we had a prawn for dinner. Just the one.
It weighed 80grams after it was fully shelled and deveined. So I made it into 9 wontons, and we had Wonton Soup with it.

Yum Yum Yum..

Happy Australia Day

Happy Australia Day! We had a quiet day and in the afternoon, put on our glad rags and went to the Australia Day Awards at the MECC as M was getting an award. She won the Volunteer of the Year for all the tireless work she does for the community. Here she is getting the award from our Mayor. Sorry about the quality I only got one shot and it was rubbish. She made a great speech, though I know she hates doing that sort of thing! Don't we all! D and M showing off the award. We came back to ours from some drinks and nibbles to celebrate. We are all very proud of you, Congratulations!

On on a side note, Happy Bloggaversary to me! Today it is 2 years since I started this blog!