For our final activity in Hervey Bay Pauline and I took a 2.2km walk along the pier in Urangan. There is nothing like the smell of rotting fish, men with no shirts that have been in the sun for 2 hours and greasy fishing reels to create a lovely backdrop for your stroll. It seemed like it was rush hour on the pier as someone reeled in a fish for every step I took. Whiting was the catch of the day.
We wandered past the dads with their kids, the old men who had been fishing there all their lives and the aging husband and wife team in their dick togs and bikinis who were the ultimate bronzed aussies. She seemed like the ultimate wife for the guy, a rod in one hand and a ciggy in the other. A kid who looked about 13 had managed to catch a tuna off the pier. A bloody tuna!
Pauline of course was inspired by the amount of fish being caught and vowed to come back to stay for a week and go fishing. I told her she could do it without me. Can you tell I’m not a big fan of fishing?
Then we started the sad journey back to Brisbane.The majority of the road from Hervey Bay to Cooroy is single lane. This means you get overtaking lanes every few ks.
Overtaking lanes are great. They start showing “Overtaking lane ahead” signs about 4kms before one. So you know that this big bastard caravan in front of you going 60 in the 100 zone is not going to be your enemy for much longer. The signs keep taunting you as you go along.. 2km ahead, then 1km ahead. You zoom up close to the caravan in front of you and prepare to do your dash. Success! You have passed the caravan and are now actually hitting the speed limit. But wait, what is that ahead at the end of the overtaking lane? Another caravan. You come up behind it just in time for the road to merge in to one lane. Just great.
Rolled in to Brisbane about 3pm said thanks to Kelly and Matt for keeping the dog and fish alive and returned to our usual programming. Internet and TV. Service is resumed.
Thanks to Janey for holding the fort while I was gone, she did some excellent posts (my favourite being the ikea one). Now you just have to put up with my crap ones again.
For more photos, check out the Flickr Set:
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