Bowen to Airlie Beach via Dingo Beach and Hideaway Bay.
After planning for a slow start for the short trip down to Airlie Beach (a straight drive was going to be about 76km) we were both awake before 5:30, and despite our best efforts we got away at 8:30!!
No problem, we, well Deb, had a plan. 🙂 We work best with a plan, apparently, 🙂
Deb had been researching and had found that Dingo Beach was getting very good reviews on the net, and it was near Hideaway Bay, so that’s where we headed.
Dingo Beach was a small detour (25km) back north just after the turn off towards Airlie off the highway. It was a good sealed road all the way to Dingo Beach and worth every metre. We struck gold, the weather could not have been better, beautiful blue skies, no wind, calm seas and mid 20’sC. This place was amazing. The caravan park is right on the water and a long crescent beach of golden sand, lots of birds in the trees and very few people.
We had a bit of a drive around and there are quite a few very “specy” holiday homes there. A real hidden gem.
Dingo Beach
Next we drove around to Hideaway Bay, a little west from Dingo Beach. It’s a bit more developed, it has a resort, but everything else seemed to be set well off the beach and the caravan park is well inland. We went for a walk along the beach and onto a rocky point to take in the view back up the beach. It’s a very pretty place, but not a patch on Dingo Beach.
Back in the car, we drove around to Airlie and our CP. We checked in, set up the van and then went into town for a look around. The tide was way out, they are having 2m differences in the tides at the moment. So there was a lot of rocks exposed at the main beach which detracted from the appearance. We walked around for a while taking it all in, had a 50c icecream at Macca’s and eventually made our way to the Yacht club for a well earned drink. The view from the deck at the club is pretty and very relaxing.
From there we drove around the marina area, so many nice boats (millions parked there in the water) and some very nice homes. We then did a bit of top-up shopping, before heading off up the hill wherever we could find a road to try and get a sky high view over Airlie, that included driving up through a private estate and then up towards an area of holiday apartments. Disappointingly, the view just never did the area justice.
We then headed back to the CP and put our feet up for the day. We hadn’t been back long when a guy on a site near us started feeding the local birds, he had them literally eating out of his hands, ducks, egret type birds and cockies. There was easy a couple of dozen birds. A good way to finish our day.
We both agree that if we had this time again, we would have stayed up at Dingo Beach rather than here in Airlie. It’s away from the crowds and tranquillic. (<– Deb asked, Is that a word? Works for me)
Off to some islands tomorrow. And as the sun goes down the native wild life sings the end of the day, so many birds, tomorrow morning may be interesting, LOL 🙂
Number of Views :2561
Just got caught up on your blog. Love hearing about all your adventures and am glad that it finally is warming up for you. Travel safe!
I just finished reading your entire log for your trip thus far. Sorry I didn’t comment
throughout your travel
. Other than some rainy and cold times-many great sunsets. What is Ingress? Any geocaching?
Hello, nice to hear from you both. Yes last two weeks have had lovely weather. Slowly getting cooler as we head down the coast, but still sunny days.
Ingress is an augmented reality game where two sides battle for control of portals. Greg started playing just before we left LA last year. We both enjoy playing, gets us out exploring the area we are in.
We haven’t done any geocaching since we started playing Ingress.