Day 3 Koumala to Monduran Dam

I really hate school holidays.  There is so much traffic on the roads and you can't get into caravan parks for love nor money.......or so it seems.  Today we had plans to get to Beneraby that is around 400km from Koumala.  I rang the caravan park at Beneraby around 9am and left a message that we needed a site for tonight.  I asked that they ring back to confirm, but they didn't.  So I suppose I was not too surprised when we arrived at the caravan park to find that they had no sites available.  I did tell them that I rang and their answer was "Oh, we have been too busy to check phone messages!" I don't know how they take bookings if they are too busy to answer the phone.  

Moving right along it was around 2pm and we needed to find a place to stay.....stat!  I started ringing around the area (Gladstone, Mirriam Vale) and was told that there was a junior football carnival on this week and everything was completely booked out.  Out of desperation I rang the Monduran Dam Caravan Park and yes they had a site available.  Whoooppppeee!

However to get here added about another 150kms to our journey but beggars can't be choosers.  But boy oh boy, haven't we lucked out!  It is a beautiful caravan park in a bush setting but within easy walking distance to the Fred Haigh Dam Wall on Lake Monduran.  We quickly set up camp, had a bite to eat and set off on a walk to the lake.  

This dam is run by SunWater and there is a small hydro station below the dam spillway and the water then flows into an irrigation channel that helps to water a lot of the Bundaberg area.  It is quite an amazing system.

After sitting in the car for hours and hours it was great to be able to stretch our legs and we walked for quite a few kilometres around the lake area.  First we walked along the dam wall and then we could see a lookout in the distance so we walked up the steep hill to it.  Philip then found a bush trail leading down from the lookout so we took that path that brought us back to the bitumen road near the dam wall.  

We came across a car pulled up in the middle of the road and the passengers were rescuing a little turtle that had somehow ended up on the road - a long way from the waters edge!

Tomorrow we are booked in at a caravan park on the Maroochy River that is not far from where we are having the caravan serviced on Monday morning.  We will have two nights here and I am looking forward to that.