Bowen

The town is fairly large with most of the usual shops but no optometrist- (the hinge came out of my specs) luckily I always carry a spare pair of glasses.  The shops are handily gathered around a few blocks so quite convenient to reach.  I had my hair cut this morning - it was badly needed- the woman did a very good job on it.  The post office was terribly busy when I visited yesterday, I was 8th on the queue which I thought bad enough, but by the time I was 5th, there were another 9 people behind me.  I suppose it's pension day or something.

Residential areas are well spread around, with no highrise as yet.

Driving around town today, we found the foreshore area has been nicely done up, with a children's playground, sound shell and lawn areas.  There's also a simple but quite well done Catalina display, which would be good for Rathmines as well.  This was an important Catalina base after Port Moresby was overrun in WW11, the planes being heavily involved in the Coral Sea battle which was a turning point in the Pacific war. There's a big concrete slab area similar to Rathmines but the ramp is not as wide. No good at low tide, because like all of Nth Qld, the tide goes out forever.   We always seem to be photographing mud flats at low tide.  I know the tide comes in sometimes but we never seem to catch it.  Speaking of catching, Chris spotted a fisherman with a very nice fish dangling from his line as we drove past- the area's renowned for fishing, it seems.

Glass historical sign at the old harbour foreshore.

This area was the harbour but the focus has been shifted some way up the coast, so that Bowen is no longer covered in a film of coal dust.  There's a marina and the fishing fleet in this area.  A little further south is as a salt works operated by Saxa Salt and major roadworks which cause long delays, not a good introduction to the town.

The main beach seen from Flagstaff hill on a rainy day.

We drove up Flagstaff Hill, a convenient lookout with a cafe on top- my kind of lookout.  Unfortunately here in the dry tropics today, it's raining, or intermittent showers anyway, so the views are not as good as they should be.  In the bursts of sunshine we could see the lovely azure of the water, as well as rainbows in the distance, but big Gloucester Island, which was clearly visible just offshore yesterday, was today hidden by cloud.  We'll have to go back up there another day when it's sunny.  Predictions are for a "rain event" all over coastal Qld tomorrow, but the weather should improve on Saturday.


I mentioned Kim's generosity- he insisted on giving us a great fish meal last night, and today it's to be roast beef.  He wanted us to have breakfast in the motel but we circumvented that by eating in the van before we saw him this morning.  In return he's asked the men to do a little chore for him, but it's not adequate return for what he's doing for us.