Day 244 Clareview, Qld

Another early morning wake-up for us, but this time, after we had finished our cup of coffee, we took ourselves for a lovely long walk along the Tannum Sands Esplanade.  It was a glorious morning with quite a brisk breeze blowing in off the ocean.  Even though it was early, there were lots of people walking along the pathway.  It is a lovely place to brush off sleep and breath in the fresh sea air.

We love Tannum Sands and even though our friends are moving away from here we will continue to make it a stopover on our way north or south.  Once we arrived back at the van we were hooked up and back on the road by 7.30.

It is just under 400km from Tannum to Clareview along the "horror stretch" between Rockhampton and Sarina.  The road hasn't improved much over the years and this year it seems to have even more potholes and humps.  It is a boring drive so we cranked up the music and went with the flow.  Even though it seemed to take forever to get to Clareview we were here by 12.30.  Philip suggested that we head to the bar/bistro for lunch rather than cooking something and I agreed wholeheartedly.  It is a great spot to eat as you have sweeping views out over the Pacific Ocean.  When we found out that Red Emperor was the fish they were using for the "Fish n Chips" on the menu, we both decided on it.  The fish was so incredibly fresh and was one of the best "fish n chips" I have had in a long time.  The chips were really crunchy and not oily at all. It was a simple meal of just fish, chips, tartare sauce and a slice of lemon. Oh, and there was one lettuce leaf that was really only a suggestion for salad.....

We washed our fish n chips down with a couple of ice cold Millers Chill Beer.  There is nothing I like better than a very cold beer on a hot day.  We are now back in shorts and t-shirts and the temperature has been sitting around 27 degrees for most of the day.  Gee I've missed the warm weather!

The tide was receding as we were eating lunch, so no sign of any dugongs. We decided to go for a walk late this afternoon and the tide was still out.  The manager of the caravan park met us as we were walking down to the waters edge and pointed to a pond where he said a large turtle was sunning itself.  When we reached the spot where the turtle was wallowing in the shallow water we started talking to a Parks & Wildlife Officer who was on holidays.  He pointed out the barnacles that were growing over the turtle and there was even one on the turtles head.  The turtle was clearly in distress and needed rescuing.  He assured us that he was going to call someone to come and collect the turtle as soon as possible. 

The beach at Clareview is not the prettiest we have seen on our journey, but it has its own special beauty. I really do look at things a lot differently now and see things that I have never noticed previously.  Funny that....

Christmas is in the air at Barracrab Caravan Park.  This giant Christmas tree is at the entrance to the park.  It's lovely to see that the owners are getting into the spirit of things.

 Tomorrow we are staying at Hideaway Bay that is just north of Airlie Beach.  It was a recommendation from someone in our "Can Do Camping-FIFO" Group so I'm looking forward to staying somewhere new.  It looks pretty darn good on the website and also comes highly recommended by Wikicamp users.