By the time that the sun went down I was pretty well at the end of Cape Bowling Green - almost 20 kilometres out into the Coral Sea.
I set off from the small park in Alva at the Surf Lifesaving Club.
I think Sam is pointing me on my way - she was heading back to our apartment in Townsville for the night.
Alright... I'll be off then!
After waving goodbye to Sam I set off on my long walk north along the coast. Initially I was actually walking the inland side of a large lagoon as I left Alva, however after passing a rough boat ramp and car park I soon found myself walking beside the ocean with the waves breaking beside me. I'd only been walking for around half an hour when I entered the Cape Bowling Green National Park and around another five minutes before I arrived at my first mangroves. Now I think these mangroves get exposed on the eastern shore when one of the frequent cyclones that batter this bit of the coast comes through and erodes the beach enough and therefore breaks through to the mangroves on the western side - although treat that as a Feral fact. Whatever the case these mangroves would prove too be the toughest spots to negotiate on the walk.
Initially I walked a narrow section of dry sand between the lagoon and the coastal dunes at Alva.
I'm a little surprised that this lagoon at Alva isn't more well known
Alva Lagoon.
The birdlife on this walk was amazing... as would be expected I guess.
I entered the Cape Bowling Green National Park shortly after leaving Alva...
... and passed by the thong tree a couple of minutes later.
Shortly after entering the park I started to encounter some mangroves.
With the tide heading towards low I had a few options at this first belt of mangroves, I could walk the mud near the water or I could pick my way through the trees a little higher up which looked like it was on sand - I went for the sand option. Passing through the first belt of mangroves I only had a bolthole beach before I got to the second belt of mangroves, thankfully it looks like a local fisherman (I guess) had cut a quad bike width track through these mangroves so the going was actually not too bad. After walking for around an hour and a half I started to reach mangroves that there was no easy option to get through, so I was forced to take to the waterline option. Thankfully walking the mud near the waterline wasn't quite as bad as I'd feared though, while the black stinky mud was as slick as ice at least I wasn't sinking into it very far. Slowly but surely I inched my way through or around each obstacle until after about two and a half hours after setting off I found myself with mostly open beach in front of me.
Initially I had some options when it came to negotiating the mangrove lined sections of the coast.
There was plenty of evidence of some expensive fuck ups along here😬
I'm not sure if vehicles were allowed out here at some stage or if these guys were just pushing the envelope a bit when it came to where they were allowed to drive - whatever the case it doesn't look like a smart decision.
This ute was well and truly buried.
In between the tricky mangrove sections the walking was beautiful.
The darker surface is mud - it was reasonably firm however as slippery as ice.
Closer to town I was able to utilise a quad bike track that had been hacked through the mangroves...
... however as I moved further north walking the mud was my only option.
Once clear of the worst of the mangroves I had some really easy walking for the next couple of hours as I walked sand bars close to the water. With the tide now pretty well dead low the hard sand bars made for great walking, not only was the firm sand easy to walk along but I was also that far out from the high tide line that the sea breeze was keeping the bugs at bay as well. After around 4 hours of walking I figured that I must be getting close to the lighthouse that I was planning to camp near, so when I noticed a slightly higher sand dune I left the hard sand near the water and sweated my way up onto the dune. Once up on my high point I could see the red and white stripped lighthouse less than a kilometres away up the spit to the north...sweet!
Back on the sand and all was good again.
There was also a bit of nautical related carnage out here on the cape.
There isn't a lot of shelter on this stroll.
Easy walking near low tide on Cape Bowling Green.
Cape Bowling Green.
Cape Bowling Green.
It was a long hot walk this afternoon.
Dropping back onto the beach I successfully negotiated one more short section of mangroves before arriving in the general area of the lighthouse. I didn't want to camp at the lighthouse (which is a pretty average spot to camp anyway) so I found myself a nice flat shelf underneath some casuarinas - now this was important because I'd actually forgotten to throw in my air mattress into my pack, so tonight I was sleeping on the pine needles and sand!
Thinking that I must be getting close to the lighthouse I climbed onto a higher dune...
... and sure enough I could see the lighthouse about a kilometre away.
That's the back side of Cape Cleveland in the distance (Townsville is on the other side of the mountains).
Pulling on my bushman's hat - I'm thinking that this looks like a dingo looking for a feed of goanna??
I found myself a nice camp on a fairly level shelf beneath some Casuarinas near the lighthouse.
Cape Bowling Green Lighthouse.
My camp was a nice one, however I had to concentrate to find it again when I returned in the dark later that night as my head torch had failed (I was using my iPhone torch!).
After setting up camp I grabbed my camera and Inreach and went exploring a bit. Firstly I checked out the automated lighthouse which was interesting enough although hardly a romantic style of lighthouse. Pushing my way through the light scrub I had a bit of a poke around looking for an old grave that is reportedly in the area although with the mozzies and midges giving me hell my heart wasn't really in it now. After my desultory attempt at finding the grave I headed back out to the wide open (and breezy) expanse of beach and startled shuffling my way north again. The vegetation on the spit now getting lower and lower until there was just a sand bar heading out into the ocean. With the sun now starting to dip into the ocean I decided that I'd better not go any further north and reluctantly turned and started a pretty slow walk back down to my camp as I continuously stopped to take photos in the rapidly changing light.
I'm thinking that these are Wallaby footprints..?
Late afternoon light out on Cape Bowling Green.
I was far from alone out here.
Cape Bowling Green.
I'm not exactly sure on what this installation is for... it doesn't come up on any of my maps.
I'd noticed a few quad bike tracks (and even followed them a couple times through the mangroves)... I guess this was where they were heading for?
Looking out over the Coral Sea from near the tip of Cape Bowling Green.
With the moon making its appearance I started my walk back to camp.
The Dirt.
According to my GPS I walked around 23.5 kilometres and climbed about 130 metres on what I'd call a medium-hard grade walk. Negotiating the mangroves was the crux of today's walk, even though I hit them near low tide they were tough going. There are no facilities at all on the walk so I'd lugged in around 10 litres of water for the two days. The biggest annoyance for me today were the bugs, there are a lot of mozzies and sandflies and even nuclear strength Bushmans was struggling to keep them off me. This walk is written up in Tyrone Thomas' old book 50 Walks in North Queensland World Heritage Wet Tropics & Great Barrier Reef which I studied before heading off. I used my Alltrails App and my GPS topos today.
Relevant Posts.
It was a slow walk back down to camp - mainly because I was stopping so often to take photos.
Early evening out on Cape Bowling Green.
There is evidence everywhere of the damage caused by the cyclones that frequent this part of the country.
It's tent o'clock.
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