Day 27 Of The East Coast

Day 27 Of The East Coast

Location: Swamp Bay Campsite, Airlie

In keeping with every one of my posts opening lines...


We both slept amazing ... There really is no better way to wake up, by the sound of the sea crashing against the rocks.

Anyhow after our usual breakfast shenanigans and feeding the ducks we headed to Cape Hillsborough National Park. We were in fact in search for Smalley's beach camping however we ended up at the headland.

Marcus had bravely attempted a 4wd track which bought us out onto a walk named "Ywabi".

The walk was 1.5km of pure fear.  We were walking along the questionable path with cobwebs everywhere, along with some very poisonous looking spiders (turned out to be Australian Jewel Spider). Kindly Marcus volunteered to go first by using our keys to swing the cobwebs out the way. 

Thankfully we survived and after some lunch we headed back to camp to pack up. Having not found Smalley's campsite we decided to drive straight to Airlie Beach.

It was incredibly hot and the drive was stunning (minus the dead brown snake in the road).

The car was coping well and we stopped for a rest at Prosperine ...  Pretty lucky we did as we managed to by 4 bottles of champs for $23.

40 minutes driving later and we were in Airlie, it was stunning! We headed straight to the Conway National park near to Shute harbour.

Marcus had found a camp spot in the national park, however we had to leave the car in Mount Rooper car park for the evening and carry everything.


Laden with camping gear we started our walk. We both struggled carrying everything through creeks and up hills for 2km. 

Once we had arrived at the campsite we realised that it wasn't quite what we were expecting. 
It was literally 4 small pebbled sites, no toilet and no electricity. 
The one thing we did have was an amazing view of the islands including South Molle.

After setting up the tent we then had to walk back YES back to the car to get all our food.

7.5km later I can hardly say that I wanted to stay there. It was the remotest place we had stayed yet and probably most scariest.

After cooking tea I was happy to lock ourselves in the tent and consume the champagne (yes we had even managed to carry that).

It was a very eery experience. All I could hear was the  sounds of insects, toads and other wildlife surrounding us. By this point it was too late to run back to the car 
...

And to finish - the delightful Jewel spider