Baffle Creek

Today is day 4 of 6 we’ll be spending at Baffle Creek which is roughly half way between 1770 and Bundaberg. It’s a lovely spot and there have never been more than 11 people here at any time, so I’ve had my wish for a bit of peace and quiet.

The area has been subdivided into mostly 40 acre blocks and we think this place is on two of those. There is 2 camping areas, one powered, one not and we are at the powered one. It has a few van sites, some camping sites, a couple of permanent tents and a couple of funny little cabins. The camp kitchen and toilet block are in the centre of all this. It is really good-I especially love the fire pit just beside it. Last night we cooked a chicken and vegetables in a cast iron Dutch oven over the coals. It was lovely to sit and watch it cook and tasted excellent too.

We were able to launch our boat in a small creek on the park, and then travel down it to Oyster Creek which then flows in to Baffle Creek. So far we have only fished and crabbed in Oyster, but today we have the boat out and plan to take it to Baffle for a look around it. It will be cheaper and faster for us to trailer it there. Our fishing and crabbing hasn’t been too spectacular. We are just using our drop nets to crab rather than the big expensive traps used around here. Russ says we have no more room for another net or trap and these ones are big. We’ve caught two crabs we’ve kept (I picked the meat and made sandwiches out of it both days) and yesterday although we caught 8, they all had to be returned. Two were enormous but female and have to go back here in QLD. We’ve caught quite a variety of fish-black bream, yellow finned bream, grunter, catfish, but all had to go back as they were too small.

The park owners left on Thursday for a few days away. A nice couple from Yeppoon is looking after the place and Cec has been great with trying to help us catch a mangrove jack which is the whole reason for this camps existence I think! He also taught us to throw our cast net so we can catch the live bait needed to catch them too. The net (which we bought in Darwin) came with instructions but neither of us could work out how to throw it. It’s amazing what one lesson with an expert can teach you!

Each afternoon, the owners feed the birds so there is an amazing variety of birds around here. There are shell ducks, bush turkeys, magpies, butcher birds, guinea fowl, doves etc, etc. Cec was a bit late feeding them yesterday, so every time we moved, they thought we must be about to feed them and all flocked around us!

The only down side to this place is the sand flies. Once again we are being attacked morning and night. I don’t seem to get as attacked as Russ, but he is better at not scratching the bites-I just can’t leave them alone