Category: Tin Can Bay

Post 401 Standown Caravan Park
Ian Collard
February 14, 2022

Standown Park

We decided it was about time we got rid of the cobwebs accumulating on "Clifford" and took him out for a bit. Our first night was here at Standown Park not far out of Gympie on the Rainbow Beach Road. It was orginally established as a retreat for military veterans hence the name Standdown. It is now open to the public but veterans stay at a discounted rate.

As we are retired and not in a rush we did not just come up the Bruce Highway. We drove along the coast looking at a few of the northern beaches we haven't seen since we moved here. Drove through Noosa, yes along Hastings St. No it is still not our pick for a holiday destination.

As an aside I proved to myself that we do indeed have a range of 900km under highway driving conditions, so we should be right for our desert trip later in the year. It wasn't much fun filling up tough - fuel was 1.76 a litre.

We then drove through Cooroy and Pomona and a back road through Kin Kin and onto the Rainbow beach road. I wasn't expecting the gravel road over the range but nothing that we couldn't cope with.

Post 402 Birthday Tea
Ian Collard
February 14, 2022

Happy Birthday Ann

Standown park is between Gympie and Tin Can Bay. We drove down to the beach for fish and chips - splashed out and got Red Emperor which we both thought was very nice. (The Snack Shack on the esplanade)

Post 403 Ian’s Christmas present.
Ian Collard
February 14, 2022

Gift Voucher #334 with the Sunshine Coast Flying School

Ann purchased a hands on 1 hour flight from the Sunshine Coast Flying School for me.

It was much more hands on than I expected. Jason had me using the stick to control our ascent virtually as soon as we took off.

 

Turning around Double Island to head back towards Gympie.

Click on the image for a short you tube video

Post 404 Tin Can Bay
Ian Collard
February 14, 2022

Tin Can Bay - Snapper Creek

Big move today to Tin Can Bay we did manage to go via Cooloola Cove and Woolworths though.

Pretty sure these colourful poly boats are tenders for the houseboats you can hire.

Barnacles Cafe and Dolphin Feeding

There is a small pod of wild dolphins that come into Barnacles Cafe for breakfast most mornings. This is a young member of the pod and is lucky this morning as he turned up late but as the volunteers were still here having their breakfast they gave him a feed.

 

One of the older dolphins showing off.

The older dolphins have more of the pink/white colouration while the younger ones tend to be mostly slate grey.

 

Ann hand feeding a dolphin.

 

Breakfast dolphin style.

 

Juvenile dolphin in the shallows.

 

Post 405 Inskip Point
Ian Collard
February 14, 2022

Inskip Point

The Fraser Island Barge about to land at Inskip Point.

After watching the dolphins have breakfast and us having breakfast too we headed off to explore Rainbow Beach and Inskip Point.

Inskip

There are a number of National Park Camp sites along beach side of the point. Naturally I drove in to a couple to check them out. We were surprised to see that every second camp had one or more dogs - isn't this a National Park. Turns out that all the camp sites here are dog friendly 🙁 . I am still of the view that National Parks should be domestic animal free but in any case surely some of the camp sites could be dog free for those of us that choose not of have or leave our dogs at home.

To me dog friendly makes a mockery of all the signs along the beach access points pointing out not to disturb the shore birds or nesting turtles.

 

The barge unloading at Inskip.

As well as access to the barge Inskip is a popular recreation area.

 

Looking across the water to the vehicles unloading on Fraser Island.

 

We didn't see any one getting bogged at Inskip while we were there not even the local copper.

 

Rainbow Beach

No photos of Rainbow Beach just a comment. Tin Can Bay is still maintaining a quite fishing village feel - Rainbow Beach already feels like the new Noosa.