Easter 2013 - Ocean Beach Bribie Island

It’s been a while since we managed to get out and enjoy some quality time camping due to the National Park closures and severe low pressure systems in South East Qld. We had booked our usual spot on Bribie Island for Easter 6 months ago and we were regularly checking the National Park website hoping that the beach on Bribie would re-open. About 2 weeks before Easter National Parks re-opened Ocean Beach and the camping area which was awesome news…

We set of on Thursday afternoon and hit the beach an hour before low tide. National Parks had issued a warning about the beach conditions and recommended travelling only an hour either side of low tide due to severe erosion and all 4 lagoons being open to the ocean. After airing down we were soon travelling up the beach and we could see for ourselves how badly this section of coast had been affected by the recent low pressure systems. The beach on Bribie is not normally very wide and I’m glad we were travelling at low tide as there are sections where there is no beach at high tide. When we caught up with the rangers over the weekend they explained that some sections of beach had lost up to 15 meters of the frontal dune system.

Ocean Beach just after the Beach entry

Crossing the 2nd Lagoon

Our camp is about 17km north of the beach entry and we were soon at camp site 11 and after a bit back and forth with the 4wd and Camper we finally got the camper in the “right” spot and had it setup. We got the kids in their togs and it was down to the beach for a swim and walk on the beach, getting them back to camp for dinner wasn’t as easy…

View North to Caloundra

 Water babies

We woke on Good Friday to a spectacular morning, it was too beautiful to sit around camp so Anna and I set off for a walk along the beach while the girls played in camp. We didn’t get far before we came across our neighbours in campsite 10 who were severely bogged trying to get up off the beach into their camp. Darren and Steph had unloaded most of their gear from their 4wd and camper in an attempt to lighten the load but were still having trouble in the soft sand and the tide was rising quickly. Anna and I offered to help and I soon had the Triton down on the beach, after several attempts of not getting very far we had “old mate” drive past and he got bogged too. He was too busy rubber necking and not paying attention, typical story running road pressures towing a trailer with low clearance and no recovery gear. We had to get this guy out of the road to give Darren a decent chance of getting up the steep entry. We soon had “old mate” on his way after lowering his tyre pressures and quick snatch out. After several more unsuccessful attempts to get car and camper up into camp we unhitched the camper and Darren got his car up into the campsite. The plan from here was to skull drag the camper up the steep dune, this eventually worked after a couple of hours of hard work. Unfortunately we didn’t think to take any photo’s as we were too busy with the recovery, I am glad we got use the Maxtrax they are an awesome bit of kit.. After spending some “quality” time with Darren and Steph and their daughter Madeline we agreed to get together that arvo for a few drinks and nibbles. The rest of Good Friday was spent down on the beach swimming and fishing. I managed to catch 4 Dart and an undersized Whitting, all were returned as I don’t like the taste of Dart and the Whitting was too small. That evening Darren, Steph and Madeline joined us at our camp for drinks and nibbles and we all got to know each other a bit better. After they left Anna knocked up a very delicious dinner of Creamy Garlic Prawns on rice and then it was off to bed for a well-deserved snooze.

Rising moon over our camp

 

 

Saturday morning greeted us with overcast conditions but this didn’t stop Erin she wanted to swim and use her boggy board. Erin and I spent 3 or 4 hours down on the beach, she swam and “surfed” and I fished managing to extract more Dart and a nice sized Bream, all went back to live another day. Anna and Lily relaxed up in the camp, Lily had developed a nasty cough and wasn’t feeling the best. By lunch the cloud started to clear and we were again treated to awesome warm weather. The afternoon comprised of more swimming, fishing and “surfing”… Anna brought her Surfboard and had a ball trying to teach herself to surf… Our new friends from campsite 10 invited us down for drinks and nibbles that evening and we had a good time with them, I even helped Darren get through some of his rum… We had planned to have a nice roast in our Neo Buddy BBQ on Saturday night but that didn’t quite work out. We got the BBQ going and meat and veggies in before heading to camp 10 for drinks, at some point over the next 2 hours we ran out of gas and we returned to a partially cooked and cold dinner. So it was more nibbles for Anna and I and 2 minute noodles for the kids for dinner.

The Easter Bunny visited in the early hours of Sunday morning and we had two very excited little girls and a generous supply of chocolate. The Easter Bunny had placed eggs around the campsite and the girls had lots of fun finding the eggs. My mate Vaughn arrived for a visit around mid-morning and we had a good time catching up and fishing together. After lunch we lazed around camp and enjoyed more time on the beach. It was soon mid-afternoon and Vaughn had to head home so we said our good buys and I returned to the my favourite beach pastime sitting doing nothing with a beer in hand. Our plan was to head home early on the low tide so we started to pack up most of our gear and then enjoyed another awesome dinner of Chilli Con Carne courtesy of my talented wife. Soon after dinner a small storm came in from the East and dumped a fair bit of rain but nothing too hairy and very little thunder or lightning.

Easter Monday saw us all out of bed at 6am to start the final part of our wet pack up, breakfast was finished, dishes washed and we were packed up and on the beach by 7.30. We were joined by Darren and Steph and an uneventful drive south down to the beach exit.  We were soon back at the car park and after airing up we exchanged contact details and all went our separate ways.. Once back home we commenced my least favourite part of beach camping – the clean-up. We had to set the camper up as the canvas was still wet so we decided to give the canvas a good wash to remove all the salt and washed both car and camper from head to tail and removed a truckload of sand from both.

View down to the beach from our Camp

Exposed Coffee Rock

Crossing a Lagoon

Our next camping trip is scheduled for the Anzac Day long weekend, Anna and I have the Friday off and we are heading south across the border with our mates Bron and Steve to Yuraygir National Park.

Trip distance = 120km
Total distance travelled with camper = 4211km
Total number of nights =32