RETURN TO DIARY

Still in Belmont.

While waiting for the axle to be repaired I had to fix a slow leak in a tyre tube. In doing so my ARB compressor couldn't take the strain of pumping my tyre up to 75psi and melted! I made a few phone calls and decided on a Blue Tounge compressor which is made in USA ? by Warne who also make winches for 4WDs. I actually bought the Twin Tounge as I thought the quicker it blows up the tyre the less it is going to overheat. I have used it this month and it took 20 minutes to inflate both the front two tyres from 20psi to 50psi and the back two from 45psi to 75psi. The old compressor took at least twice that time.

Narara T & T has replaced the axle and we are on the road again, hip hip hooray!

Heading north we were going to stay at Croki which was a small town on a river. Being out of season, an old caravan park and only a few campers in residence we were not prepared to pay $25 a night. A little further down the road we stayed at a new caravan park, Stoney Park for $19 a night. A good decision.

Another park we stopped at on the way north was on the river near Iluka at Brown Rocks Caravan Park. A lovely little park with the promise of good fishing in the river. Only $16.50 plus power. The next morning we decided to carry on North and stop in here on the way down later in the year. Boy were we surprised when they wanted to charge us $1.50 per kilowatt of power and the meter said that we had used 3Kw! No air conditioner, no heater and fully charged batteries from our solar panels. I didn't even connect to power until 5pm. We couldn't afford to stay here full time as I'm sure we would be using $10 of power a night!!! I asked the next caravan park how much power the residents use and he told me about $10 a week with air conditioners, freezers and fridges. Iluka's caravan park wasn't much more expensive and all the power you wanted to use.

After five days travelling from Belmont in NSW, we arrived at Inskip Point, Queensland on the south end of Fraser Island. We will spend the rest of May here.

The passage between Inskip Point and Fraser Island next to our camp. Scroll right for more.

There were not many fish being caught off the beach or from the boats. Later we heard that they were catching some whiting and bream down closer to the the ferries. We went trolling after some schools of Tuna which were chasing baitfish in the channel.

I actually caught one, our first Tuna. It did pick on my smallest rod and lure, (not our heavy boat rods) which didn't quite handle the power of a 90cm Tuna. The rod snapped but I still managed, 20 minutes later, to get the fish in the boat. I took my beach rod out with me a few days later so I could cast to the school of tuna which normally disappeared when we got too close. I caught another one, slightly larger than the first tuna, which had the beach rod bent over double with the tip in the water for most of the 25 minutes it took to get it in the boat. We shared this one around with the other campers and the next day they all said it tasted great and looked forward to some more. The tides were higher and the moon disappeared and so did the tuna until the day we packed up the boat then another school of tuna came through just to tease us.

We've had a lot of rain while camped here at Inskip but the weather has been a lot warmer than what we experiencing down in Newcastle. Sandy's been out in the sun absorbing the rays when she can.

We have camped in an area that is good for solar panels as most of the camping here is under shade. Mobile service disappears occasionally and we only receive Channel 7 via digital (occasionally) or satellite. Unfortunately Channel 7 is scrambled via my satellite so I've sent an email off to Optus and they tell me Central 7 has turned me off so I've now sent an email to 7 asking them to turn me back on again. You would think that they don't like us watching their station!!!!  SBS, 9 and 10 are fine from the standard TV antennae. We have plenty of books to read and I've been studying the Photoshop Tutorials from the book I bought earlier this year. The campground is run by the National Parks and costs $8 a night. The only facilities are the environmental loos which work well. I have launched the boat from the beach right in front of the camp.

Next month heading North to Woodgate, Burrum Heads National Park. Sorry about the lack of photos but we didn't travel much this month so I gave you a big one.

Life is good.

Well that's all for now, see you next month.

Peter and Sandy