Jottings from Paradise

We’ve been out of contact in Paradise for several days at Cape Hillsborough National Park, staying in a resort (cabins and caravans) right on the beach. It’s only about 40km north of Mackay.

It was fairly crowded when we arrived on Saturday, but luckily I’d phoned ahead and booked so we had a site waiting. The campground cleared out on Sunday, obviously people just weekending, and has been relatively quiet ever since though we’re told there are some folk in caravans on the top level who come from the south for months.

It has a perfect bay and beach, rocky headlands around which one can scramble, and a small island linked by a rock causeway that goes under at high tide.

The causeway that was nearly our undoing.

There’s a 3km walk (or climb) to various lookouts, returning along the beach. We did that this morning, crossing over the causeway to explore the island and have a banana and a drink from the backpack I’d been carrying throughout our walk. Suddenly I realised that part of the causeway was awash so there was a bit of a scramble . . . and a wade . . . through the big rocks forming the causeway. We were wearing strong hiking boots so they stood it rather well but the seawater still came in over our ankles.

Naturally, we hadn’t really thought about the tide and it turned very fast!

The cabins and the tent camping areas, as well as spaces for motorhomes, are at beach level, with just a thin fringe of trees through which one walks to the beach. Then there’s a rock terrace on which sit quite a lot more caravan sites as well as amenity blocks, laundry, pool, etc.

Scrub turkeys fossick around most of the day and yesterday a randy male turkey had the hens on the run most of the time. As well there’s a big old kangaroo who lies around under the clothes lines. He literally lies there all day, turning his head to nibble at the grass, the picture of indolence.

The resident kangaroos, keeping an eye
on the washing.

On the wildlife front, we saw turtles in the sea from one of the headland lookouts this morning during our walk, and John, who was walking in front of me, suddenly propped to let a diamond-backed black snake glide across the path and into the bush. We’re told there may be kangaroos and wallabies on the beach at 6am (and we saw back claw-marks of one while walking there late this morning) but we’ve never been up in time to see them.

It has been lovely just being totally idle for a few days, reading, sleeping, walking, but not swimming as the water is actually quite cold.

We’ll wander down the coast when we leave tomorrow, planning to catch up with friends in Yeppoon on Wednesday.

PS: We’re now at Yeppoon, with the motorhome in the driveway of our friends’ house.