Saturday 15th May to Wednesday 19th May 2021 – Burnett River to Pancake Creek, Bustard Head

Saturday

Our time at Bundaberg was spent catching up with my brother Matt, his wife Mel, daughters Riley, Tayla and son Ryan. We had not seen Matt, Mel and family for 15 months, the last time being when they visited Victoria prior to COVID.

Driving through the countryside surrounding Bundaberg we discovered a huge amount of agriculture. There were sugarcane fields and railway tracks zig zagging across the roads. Matt & Mel were saying that a lot of farmers are replacing their sugarcane crops with macadamia trees due to their higher returns, although it takes 5 years before the trees produce nuts.

We were amazed to hear that the Bundaberg region is the food bowl of Australia. The region supplies the following percentage of produce towards Australia’s total :-

• 90% of sweet chili,
• 70% of sweet potato,
• 60% of passionfruit,
• 50% of macadamia nuts

Sunday

Making the most of the generator running for the water maker, we completed domestic duties including vacuuming, washing and charging drone batteries. We’d been experiencing problems with our new internet router that we picked up in Sydney, which was very frustrating so Mark completed several self-help options prior to admitting defeat and contacting the company that supplied the router who requested that it be sent back to Brisbane to be fixed.

Monday

A cargo ship which been anchored offshore was scheduled to enter the port today so at 10am a pilot boat went past to deliver the pilot to the ship and about 30 minutes later the ship slowly steamed past Escapade assisted by two tugs as it navigated the bends in the channel.

Later in the day we were fortunate to have the opportunity of going up in a 4 seater Comanche, owned and piloted by one of Matt’s friends, Greg. The view was spectacular as we headed south along the coast, over the sand mine where Matt works and then north to the Burnett River were we did a tight turn over Escapade before heading back to the airport.

Tuesday

Today Matt took us for a drive up to the extinct volcano known as “The Hummock” just out of Bargara. The last eruption is estimated to have occurred around 1 million years ago. The basalt lava flowed west to Bundaberg, south to the Elliot river and east to the Bargara coast then eventually flowing out to sea.

Although “The Hummock” is only a mere 96 metres above sea-level it has fantastic views towards the ocean and across the agricultural fields to the city of Bundaberg. The Taribelang Aboriginal people were the first to inhabit the area that they named “The Hummock, the burning mountain.”

We decided to stay at Bundaberg an extra day as Georgie had a zoom meeting with the Principal of her Secondary School, so we needed to make sure we had a good internet connection. The meeting went well and Georgie has been formerly accepted as a year 7 student at Gippsland Grammar in 2022.

Wednesday

We picked up anchor at 0415 and motored out of the Burnett River towards Pancake Creek (a small inlet just north of the town of 1770). We had an 11 hour voyage ahead of us with seas of 2 ½ – 3 metres and a south easterly wind of 20-25 knots. It was a great sail until the last couple of hours when the wind swung directly behind us making it a bit rolly. Thankfully Georgie managed to make it through the entire journey without getting sick – fingers crossed she now has her sea legs.

We made good time, anchoring in Pancake Creek at 1330 hours, two hours ahead of schedule.