A sign of holiday time

During the first week of our stay this time, it co-incided with the Queensland school holidays. This 'look' - the railings decorated by brightly coloured beach towels, cozzies (1) and rashies (2) was a common sight then!


1) Cozzies - Aussie slang for "swimming costumes
2) Rashies - slang for 'rash vests' used for surfing or just sun protection!

Dolphins!

A few years ago I recall seeing dolphins in the ocean near the beach, but I got extra lucky one morning on this stay. I set off on my morning constitutional along the beach at around 5.4am and the sea looked particularly pretty with the sun glinting off the really quite bright blue sea. I set off northwards along the beach. I often concentrate on the waves and sand but this time I cast my eyes further afield and was rewarded with the sight of dolphins!

They were a few hundred metres away but easily recognisable and were gently heading south. I decided to walk along parallel to them and turned around. Miraculously my camera that had not worked a few minutes earlier came alive and I was able to TRY and take some shots. As my camera is just a point and shoot though, I took 70 odd photos in the direction of these lovely creatures before they became too far away to keep attempting shots. A few shots have the odd fin visible but an extraordinarily high number were of the sky. LOL. This group had 4 dolphins, one of which was a youngster going by its size. A further two dolphins could be seen even further out.

I decided to turn around and got about halfway back to where I started when I looked to the waves and saw two dolphins no more than 10 metres from me in the first breaker. As it was a relatively high tide, the dolphins were in pretty shallow water and a few times I saw them squiggle pretty hard keeping going rather than getting grounded! I turned south again and followed these two for quite a while before they speared off eastwards and into deeper water.

These two provided such delight - there really is something mesmerising and uplifting by these wonderful beasts. For the most part they just glided, surfacing occasionally and sometimes blowing water out of their blowhole, so I mostly saw just their fin, however they were that close you could see the jagged edge of the back of their fins and their smooth grey skin . One in particular turned towards me through the wave and then turned south again, getting lifted up by the wave and highlighted by the sun through the water (see below). The two even raced around each other when they must have found some tasty little fish.



By the time I left the beach an hour and a half later there were quite a few people on the beach and I could see another couple of dolphins a few hundred metres north, doing their job of mesmerising more people.

A Child's Piece of Beach Art

Queensland holidays had drawn to a close and the busy state of the beach reduced substantially. But the morning following the close of the holidays I came across this little piece of beach 'art' that a child must have created before they left.

Leaves, shells and twigs were used - the twig created the form with the shells and leaves resting upon it. The top white shell had a hole near its top and had been threaded onto the stick giving its height and keeping it in place.

A nice little piece of art to find on my morning walk.

Another visit to Woodgate

Just back from another visit to beautiful Woodgate!

The early spring weather was beautiful - not too hot, not too cold. A few cloudy days and one with a little rain, but for the most part, days that started cloudy soon cleared to warm sunshine. It was great to be able to throw off the winter layers I've been used to at home and wear ONE layer of light clothing!

Lots of posts and pictures to come :)

Our Woodgate holiday rental

There is no need to pack for a day at the beach - situated one street back from the beach near the corner of Mackeral and Tenth Avenue, it is only about a 100m walk to the beach! You can easily see the ocean through the trees on the Esplanade from the verandah :)

Enjoy the early morning sunshine from the verandah that is accessible from the lounge, bedroom 1 and bedroom 2. In the afternoon the verandah is in the shade from the hot sun and catches the sea breezes straight off the ocean.

Let the kids chill in front of the TV/DVD in the rumpus area downstairs while you relax in the comfortable loungeroom:



Fall to sleep listening to the waves lap the beach and enjoy the sea breeze all night long in the hot weather.

Bedroom 1


Bedroom 2


Bedroom 3


The top floor also has a fully equipped kitchen, a full bathroom (incl. bath), a laundry chute from upstairs to the laundry below, a verandah at the front which accessible from the loungeroom, bedroom 1 and 2. There are ceiling fans throughout. The loungeroom also has a TV, DVD and CD stereo.

Downstairs is a rumpus area with large TV and DVD and comfortable chairs. A second shower and toilet is perfect for kids to use after being to the beach rather than invading mum and dad's privacy upstairs! The laundry has a washing machine and dryer and there is a clothes line in the backyard. A BBQ is also supplied for guests use. The garage is indoor for one car.

The back yard is fenced and the property is pet friendly - but only for outside dogs. A dog kennel for a medium sized dog is provided.

If fishing is a favoured pastime, there is a sink with tap at the side of the house for cleaning your catch :)

If you would like to have a holiday here, please click the house photograph in the right hand column which will take you to the realtor's booking site for the house.

Discovering Woodgate - 2006

We ventured north for our annual family holiday in September 2006. As we had friends in Maryborough and Bundaberg we wanted somewhere not too far from either place, so I looked at an aviation map and saw the village of Woodgate Beach, situated on a thin strip between the ocean and National Park.

It doesn't appear on most maps unless they are localised area ones, so I was fortunate in the map I chose! I googled a query for "holiday accommodation Woodgate" and found that real estate agents listed holiday properties for weekly rentals. Perfect.

I booked a house on The Esplanade - it looked pretty basic, but just across from the beach. A couple of weeks later we left home and arrived in Woodgate Beach.

What a surprise! A strip of pristine beach a massive 15km long and hardly a soul on it. There were kangaroos everywhere, hopping down the street or lazing under shady trees on people's lawns.

The majority of houses showed the village's roots as a place for the 'weekender' for those living not too distant or holiday cottages for those living further away. Most houses were fibro or weatherboard and pretty basic and a lot of them circa 1950s. Our rental that year was no different!

The very basic nature of the house (small, fibro, old furniture, basic amenities and the only bathroom downstairs under the house and only accessible by going outside, down the steps and back under the house!) was easier to ignore when just across the road was a magnificent beach!

We discovered that the village was actually packed during school holidays, when half of Queensland (it seemed) came to stay! But we were outside of the Queensland holidays and so there were very few holiday makers - mostly just the year round residents.

The real estate agent thoughtfully provided a brochure on what was for sale in the area when we checked in, and it was hard not to look through it. No one was more surprised than us when, a week later, we had bought a house!

Unable to afford the million dollar price tag attached to the shacks on the Esplanade, we chose a house located one street back from the beach - or second sand dune back as my husband describes it!

The house had "good bones" - two storey, with a rumpus area, shower, toilet, laundry and garage on the bottom and the living areas upstairs - a lounge, dining room, full kitchen, full bathroom and three bedrooms as well as an upstairs verandah along the front, facing the beach.

We took possession a few weeks later and spent a full week from dawn to dark painting, cleaning and preparing it for the Christmas holiday rental season.

Since then it has continued as a holiday rental, including being our holiday house for a fortnight a year! We never get up there enough - but we love it when we do!