Ray went fishing again!

After his amazing success yesterday he woke up with a smile still on his face from his fishing success, and bounced around the caravan until he left bright and early for another spot of fishing. He debated whether to try some fishing spots that he went to when we were here ten years ago. On that occasion my oldest friends (as in we have known each other for over forty years) Karen (different Karen to Cairns Karen BTW) and Linda flew up and stayed with us for the most amazing 4 days together in the Whitsundays. We had the most unbelievable time together, went to Hamilton Island and have many stories and sensational photos to relive it through. Ray was our chauffeur and Caleb our butler until he got sick of it and preferred being doted on by Karen and Linda. Special times for sure.

While we spent time catching up, Ray made sure we were comfortable then he disappeared, off fishing. Considering he didn’t have any success 10 years ago at those various spots, he decided to go back to where he went yesterday.

We are both suffering terribly from midgie bites here as well. Ray is worse than me and his legs are totally covered in terrible Midgie bites.

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I’ve got a few more annoying ones even though I’m lathering myself in my magic sauce from Cairns. I think I’m not putting it on often enough and the midgies are coming for me. I just don’t know how people live with them or whether after you are around them a while, they leave you alone. But, I just think it takes the edge off what is a beautiful place to be, as in the tropical north when you’re suffering with midgie bites,. They’re just not like the usual mosquito bites because hey become festering blisters that keep you up at night scratching and then scab over leaving you looking like a leper. Not particularly attractive when the weather is so hot that you wear shorts all day and your legs and arms are covered in them.

While Ray was out fishing this morning. The Captain and I got up and got ready and he decided that he needed to do a bit of exploring to while away what we knew was likely to be hours. Henry scraped at the door and I knew that we needed to brave the elements. There’s no way I was going near any grass today so I negotiated my way out onto the foot path which is actually pretty wide and we just kept walking. Anytime he wanted to go onto the grass he was able to, but I stayed with my feet firmly planted on the foot path. I waited for news of the next catch from Ray.

I waited and waited and waited.

Ray arrived back at the van empty handed and not too happy.

He said that a German lady with two boys turned up at the fishing jetty with no idea how to fish. He felt obligated to help them. Ray gave the youngest child lessons on how to cast his rod and put bait on his hook. The other son needed help untangling his line, putting a sinker and hook on, the list went on. In appreciation he was offered some grapes but declined. Fishy fingers and grapes was not appealing and the thought of coming home and telling me a young German woman fed him grapes on the jetty in Airlie wouldn’t have gone down well was spot on. Best to say “Thanks but, no thanks.”

A man drove his boat over near to the jetty and told Ray that his fish finder was showing fish in the area to the left of them and they should cast their rods there. They did but didn’t catch anything. Quite a novel way of getting some fishing assistance though.

I was surprised when Ray pulled up at 11:30am. He had had enough. Time to do something else. We decided to revisit the beautiful bay that we took Karen and Linda to and where we had a beach picnic. We did a bit of Googling and I searched back through the blog. We were headed to Hydeaway Bay. Also known as (Hideaway Bay).

Driving through Hydeaway Bay we came to a dirt road and saw an interesting sign.

We just had to continue on. We saw signs for Gloucester Resort and others welcoming day trippers and inviting us to stop a while and have a cold one. How could we refuse? We parked in the unmade car park and followed the path to where we heard music coming from. The path opened up into a bar area and we truly felt like we had walked into the brochure I later picked up at the bar.

The first thing we saw when we walked in was the resort pool. It was an inground beauty against the backdrop of the Coral Ocean. It seemed totally out of place coming off a dirt track. The bar was pumping the tunes and we could see people playing beach volleyball on the court and people sitting in designated areas drinking and having a great afternoon in the sun. The backdrop wherever you looked, was the coral sea, we headed straight for the bar and picked up the snack menu because we realized we hadn’t had lunch. Ray ordered a mixed drink and I got a rosé. I thought I’d try the Barramundi spring rolls and Ray ordered the bucket of prawns. We were so happy sitting in this oasis looking at the coral sea counting our absolute blessings.

Henry insisted sharing Ray’s prawns. He has quite a palate for all seafood. Ray then had to order some hot chips because he said he didn’t know he had to share his food with Henry. When the hot chips came, he had to share those too because they are a menu favourite for Henry.

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After lunch. and another drink, we had a paddle on the beach. Henry persisted in trying to drink the sea water which is disastrous for dogs and the clean up that inevitably comes with it. We left reluctantly.

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We wanted to find the picnic spot that we originally came to find but discovered that the road to it was now blocked by huge boulders. It was no longer accessible. Further along gates had been erected and “Private Property” signs attached to them. We were disappointed. We couldn’t revisit our little bay but we could come back to Gloucester Bay again and make some new prawn and rośe filled memories here another time.