Bowen, Qld - 6 August 2011

Our Saturday trip to Bowen was one of our shorter ones. Pity the big mango did not mean we could have mangos for lunch.  We talked the Caravan Park people into letting us stay overnight in a drive-thru site that we could not have used if we intended to put out the awning. So we were set up in time for a late lunch. I went exploring with the new camera and Anne decided on a nap.  

Stone Island from Flagstaff Hill lookout

My favourite colour: sky, sea, mountains - it just has to be blue

Rocks at Horseshoe Bay Bowen

The beach end of the rocks at Horseshoe Bay.

More rocks - did we tell you Anne is a scenery freak?

She collects it!

The Port Dennison marina at Bowen

Well, I did the trip to Flagstaff Hill and shot some lovely scenery at about 150 degrees of seascapes. Then did the town tour, watched kite boarders who had runs for distances like 2 kms and back on very smooth water that looked quite shallow, took some interesting rock formations at Horseshoe Bay and came back to the Port Dennison Jetty – which is still celebrating its part in Baz Luhrmann’s Australia. Some other scenes from that film have not fully recovered and there is scaffolding round the Hotel.

I was drawn to check out what people were photographing in the water near the jetty. Found it was a herd of Dugongs so raced off to get Anne. We saw about 6 or 8 Dugongs and a Turtle and were able to get quite good photos (of Dugongs). Unfortunately for the land-based photographer Dugongs have very heavy bones to enable them to stay underwater where their tucker is so they only just make it to the surface to breath and then drop back down again. We were lucky that the water is so shallow here that we also saw lots more of their body shapes than one does in deeper water. The cyclones ripped the weed beds about badly along this coast so the Dugongs and Turtles are having a thin time foraging.

Sea Eagle over one of the beaches in Bowen

Dugong coming up for air

The old seamen's saw a mermaid's tail

And this view is surely a mermaid. 

Anne here: To me they had a pale biege/pinkish body with randomly spaced and sized circles like leopards spots.

Best view of a dugong from the surface

Turtle feeding with the dugongs at Bowen

Of course I then took Anne for a tour round the spots I had identified earlier. We found the ‘right’ Fish and Chips Shop got an early dinner and had an early night before our trip to Townsville the next morning.

Anne here again:  I could quite see why Baz Luhrmann's people chose Bowen, the architecture of most of the central part of the town is quite beautiful with large very broad streets - such a change from the narrow little streets of a lot of towns.   The recent murals are well located to show the town's history and industry.