Here We Go Again - Chapter 20 - Yeppoon Day 4

Our last scheduled day here in this area of paradise. Robyn has booked a hair appointment for noon. She also wants to view the Causeway flowing backwards on high tide which is timed for 10.15am and there is washing to be done because our next three might not allow domestic chores.

Not giving a chance for a fish to go by me I offer to join Robyn on her quest to the Causeway. Forbsy is also keen to fish it as well. 

“If you are coming then you are only getting 30 minutes to fish as I have things to do” suggests Robyn. Forbsy quips, we can do all the fishing we require in 15. 15 is it then.

Before we leave we set a load of washing on and again I am called into action to peg on the Hills Hoists that do not move up or down and are out of the reach of my vertically challenged wife. Rather than have her hold the peg box and attempt to provide me with clothes to hang, I come up with the idea of placing pegs on the line first so the job will be easier. It turns out to be a brilliant idea, for when Robyn returns with the washed clothes, attaching them to the line is a breeze. As luck would have it I have applied just enough pegs for the job.

Now off to the Causeway. Our Cruiser is already ready and equipped with everything I need. Just need Forbsy to pack his fishing stuff and we are off. I snap a shot of a street sign with the same as the middle name of our daughter and send it to the family Facebook Group as a laugh. We wait as two small children and their father cross from the pool area to the equipment area. They wave and we are off.

The Causeway is only moments away from the caravan park, and given it is only half an hour before the scheduled high time we expect to be fishing from the bridge as the tide refills the lake. This is not to be. The high tide is not even high enough to make the equilibrium point and the water is still trickling over the weir. I show Robyn and Forbsy where I fished the other evening, and in the daylight you can see the crevasses in the rocks into which my bait was being set.

But this is not fishing and dropping a line here would have no reason. We talk Robyn (like we were small children) into allowing the 15 minutes to begin from the time we cast our first lure AFTER we walk down through the rocks and along the sand and mud flats to the lower accesses of the creek. She begrudgingly agrees.

Off we go to a spot where the creek seems to come close to the shore making the chances of something memorable somewhat higher than just on the shallow mudflats. Forbsy sets his clock to 15 minutes on the timer and we fish. Expecting very little we are not surprised when after the alarm goes we have had no joy.

We walk back to find Robyn about to start looking for us and texting on her phone. She giggles in mild surprise that we have returned “on time”.

We head back to the park for Robyn to ready herself for her hair appointment. Forbsy and I are keen to checkout the jetties at Roslyn Bay having heard stories of prawns being caught next to piers and fishing to be had. I pack my gear into his Cruiser and we are ready.

The mariner at Roslyn Bay is large. The car park, ten times the size of that at Forster is full of boat trailers, their contents launched out in the ocean. We park and grab our gear and walk. We know not where to walk but we walk towards the ocean. We see people fishing, we see people using cast nets. 

We even stop and watch an old grey haired man using his net. He comments the prawns are few and far between. His net is different to mine, the yolk allows for a central line to gather up the net in a different fashion to the one I have. His will work better in a vertical sense as the weights come up first rather than are dragged along the bottom like mine attempting to get live bait in a creek.

Forbsy and I walk out onto a rocky outcrop nowhere Forbsy suggests we should fish. We have walked past some moored boats, tied up much like the Houseboats we used on the Murray River a few months before. Fishing between them will be impossible should anything be hooked, so it is passed them we go.

I dare not use the net here, it is far too rocky so its the lures for us. We cast here, we cast there to no avail. Forbsy moves closer to the moored boats and changes his lure. First cast I look across and I see him with rod bent over. I thought for a moment he had snagged the lure. Then it was evident, he was into a fish of quality.

I see a flash of white as he drags the fish from the water and scampers up the rocks. He has caught a large flathead, 60cm+. I reach fro my phone and take some shots of Fiorbsy and the fish. I cannot get the exact shot required so I go to my bag and return with my monogrammed fish grips. A bit much I know but someone has to do it.

A much better picture of the fish and it captor are taken, the hooks released for another attempt, and the fish secured for cleaning and eating before we leave (well the cleaning part at least). The snaps are sent to the unusual suspects and I muse with Forbsy about how long it will take Silver Leader to join us. With renewed resolve Forbsy is back at it, casting here, casting there and having no further luck.

I change lures consistently looking for the combination that might yield a fish. I finally resort to a soft plastic lure and almost immediately have attention I can feel. Obviously not big enough to take the hook, the lure is being attacked even if not moving. Unlucky for a fish I snag one in the gills and a fight ensues. Its a small whiting, undersized if I took it home, but certainly as large as some I have had at restaurants, particularly the Lebaese ones of Greenacre which I have been known to frequent, where soaked in milk and dipped in hot oil, you eat them whole. This one is going back.

The lunch bug is calling Forbsy. He fillets his fish, I return the carcass to the water and we both head off on the walk back to his Cruiser, me carrying the fish fillets in my net bucket. As soon as we get back to a pier we notice who else, but Silver Leader. No gear in hand but certainly having come to watch having brought his wife to look at the pier and the other fisherman.

The netters are doing better now. Instead of one every half hour or so, each cast seems to come back with a prawn or two, sometimes more. A large commercial fishing charter boat covers most of the pier where the best prawning is done but it can be seen that it is still possible to get a good feed if persistence is one of your ideals.

Heading back to the park I again miss a shot of the beach at low tide I have been meaning to take. The best vantage place is on a long sweeping corner of the main road and before I can get the phone on and into camera mode, the moment is gone and invariably there are cars behind making stopping impossible. Maybe next time.

Into the park and we have to stop again for the same children and their father crossing to the same equipment, clothed a little less than last time and they wave again as if they remembered our last encounter.

Forbsy has a calling for more driving and investigating. Fraser Park atop Mount Archer has tweaked his attention. First we need to know who wants to accompany him and there is some confusion, but not when you understand why. Robyn and I are keen, but first Robyn needs to spend a penny. Rose is keen up, being Rose is not ready just yet. Silver Leader suggests he is not coming as he is waiting on a phone call.

When we load up, Silver Leader, phone to his ear, stops us and suggests he will be ready in 5. The call lasts much less than that and he clambers in and we are on our way. 

We are heading to Rockhampton the way Forbsy came in ie Via Emu Park. On this road there are cattle farms. Charolais, Brahma and Santa Gertrudis cattle, the heavy weights of the beef industry egrets beside them, graze up their bellies in the long grass. There is a call of camels and sure enough there are some whizzing by, secured behind electric fences.

Everyone here seems to take great pride in their gardens and lawns. They appear pedicured to say the least. What this does is allow full view of the statutes therein. White tigers, African pack animals and various other immortalised wild life at various times adorn the side of the road.

The GPS is tricking us into thinking we need to go down a dead end street. Forbsy has been following it in close up mode and when he expands it sees there are more than “difficulties” in the potential trek to be travelled which includes a “crow flies” section between 2 points. We change GPS and input an address we know to be close to where we want to go. Instead of 7 kilometres to go we now have 27. Back along the gravel road, out to the main road and onward we go. 

Silver Leader has now input the address into his GPS as I have done into the Cruiser’s. For the moment we are congruent as to the roads to travel but it is not long before they differ. Forbsy takes the Cruiser’s version and Silver Leaders catches up as we roundaboutly head in the same direction.

All of a sudden we are climbing. The road has become very windy and the view out the windows ever opening to the vista we can see of Rockhampton. Up and up we go, the vista before us getting grander by the moment. We almost stop at one point thinking the views cannot get much better than this, but continue to the GPS ending point.

At the entrance to Fraser Park we understand why Forbsy has brought us here, although looking at the park where we think pictures can be taken we are a little taken aback at the height of the view interrupting trees. To the right is the noise of children. Out of sight  but definitely not out of ear shot. Their laughter draws us towards a path and a walkway through a garden of Black Boys and other shrubs, strewn with signs about the wildlife and the flora of the area.

Then the path turns from pebbled concrete to boardwalk and you can see vantage points where the full vistas of the area can be seen.

They are breathtaking, across Rockhampton, the Fitzroy River and into the hinterland beyond, and that is just one vantage point. The boardwalk encompansses 270 degrees of views, all different, all just as breathtaking.

Forbsy cannot help himself, he builds a cairn. As a couple walk past, in my best David Attenborough voice I suggest that on their right is the rare Forbes Cairn Stacker Bird. They laugh, I take pictures of him and move on.

I manage to get a little ahead of the group and decide to build a commemorative cairn. Robyn is mortified when she catches up, but agrees to have her picture taken with the monument. We are well away from the cairn when the others pass it, they snap shots of it as well.

The sun is getting low and we look to head home. Diving along the road out of Rockhampton, Forbsy has decided the direct route home is a far better ioption, I snap sunsets through the trees as we drive. The undulations of the road, allowing, at times for glimpses of the setting sun, bright and orange between the trees. Without clouds to reflect the light, the emphasis is on the orange glow through the trees.

As we get back to Yeppoon it is almost dark. I have one chance to get the shot of the beach, devoid of water at low tide that I have been striving for but forgetting to take. My phone does not let me down. Even though the light is very dim, there is enough light to capture the look down the beach, muddy, and sandy up high, the gleaming of the water soaked sand in the middle to the water’s edge, where the waves are crashing (if one foot waves can crash).

Its been a  big day. Robyn while having her haircut also managed some time in the local butchers and has brought home dinner options. We wont be long out of bed tonight.