Thierings on Tour

The morning brought a lot of pain and suffering from all the sandfly bites the girls and I had all over our arms and legs. Now we thought 1770 was bad, but this was next level! People could easily think we have a much more sinister disease if we didn’t specify it was sandflies and the itching was crazy! Both the older girls have got to the point where they are in so much pain, their bites start bleeding from all the scratching. I think I’ve spent half oh my nights waking up I’m so itchy and sore. So we are trying all the creams and remedies we can find out about….

We packed up, had a play at the playground (cue more sandflies!) and then it was time to head further north.

We settled on Bowen as our destination for the night as it involved us making adequate progress on our planned route, but also had some beautiful spots from what we had seen.
For those wondering, we have a rough week by week plan to get from A to B to ensure we are back in time by the end of week 30, but within those weeks we have no set timeframes and I have been known to book campsites 15 minutes before we arrived at them. On the rare occasion it is a free camp, it doesn’t matter so much, of course. So I’ve definitely had to let go of some of my control freak tendencies on this trip! It might change a bit as we get closer to some of my work events and also in WA where there seems to be a lot more travelling families and crazy bookings 180 days in advance by some people. Anyway, I digress!

On our way out of Cape Hillsborough we stopped at one more walk, the Diversity Circuit. It was a leisurely stroll through rainforest, mangroves, past boulders and through nature. A good way for the girls to stretch their legs before our big driving stint for the day. It was also nice not to have to worry about school and homework in the car…

Just before we arrived in Bowen, we stopped for a token tourist photo with the Big Mango. We really aren’t doing that great stopping at all the “Big” things. You could feel the heat and the girls were looking forward to a swim at the pool.

This time I was sensible and had a click & collect Woolies order ready for us, meaning no fighting at the shops. Instead we arrived at an absolute cracker of a spot at Bowen. The pool didn’t need to be huge or have waterslides, it was a big hit!

Once they had splashed enough (in our opinion, never theirs) we headed off to explore a few more spots around Horseshoe Bay and the cape. There were so many beautiful spots everywhere… I would definitely come back here for a holiday!

We parked up at Horseshoe bay and decided to walk up to the lookout for a better view of the beach from above. There were so many amazing boulders and I won’t lie, I was wanting to photograph them all for my mum.

The very top platform was even more amazing. Perched up on top of a platform overlooking the bay, the amazing views out to see and Bowen down below. What a gorgeous view!

Scarly did really well walking by herself on this trek and happily declared she wanted to go on more. But it was getting a bit late, so after a quick swing at the park (I’d say in competition with Grays Point for swing with the best view) it was time to head back and enjoy a sunset drink and some chippies watching the sun set on Day 20 of our trip. It was pretty overcast so there wasn’t much of a photo opp this time.

Kms travelled – 180