A few days in Gladstone

Gladstone is a very small city about 500 km north of where we started sailing in Brisbane.  It's really just a medium sized town that's become home to a few supersized heavy industries. Australia is by far the worlds largest exporter of coal and a heck of a lot of it goes out via Gladstone's harbour. An armada of giant ships sit on the horizon, all patiently waiting for their turn to scare a few yachties as the ships draw up to the coal loading dock one by one. We kept to shallow end of the bay and well clear of the shipping channel.

Not so for these crazy fishing boats. As soon as the coal carriers pass they zoom around in the deep dredged channel trailing nets and  flocks of hopeful and ever hungry seabirds.

We've found a very pleasant anchorage, calm and protected on the quiet Boyne creek lined with trees and parks. It's a very shallow river, but fortunately like most trimarans we can float in very little water. 

When we first arrived I wasn't sure that the anchor had set properly so I dived in to check it. The water was cloudy, dark and gloomy.

A couple of hours later we went ashore and saw this sign. Yikes! Apparently the place is also infested with nasty Bull sharks.

We got to know some of our boat neighbours Andre and Cathy on their trimaran "Lightfoot" built by themselves.  Andre is ex-South African and went to Bergvliet High School. Small world.

Gladstone is also home to a giant Aluminium smelter, and apparently quite a few ex-Richards Bay employees. I'm sure they have found better lives here among this gentle, friendly and affluent community. 

 There can be few better places to raise a family. We've twice stumbled upon family oriented market fairs with food stalls and live music and child-oriented entertainment.

A scary reptile show:

Another stall had a group of orphaned baby kangaroos in brightly coloured baby blankets:

All over town we see carefree packs of kids outdoors on scooters and bikes playing in parks and fishing off jetties. There appears to be zero crime. We were quite blown away by this pair of mobile ATM's  loaded onto the back of a kombi-style van casually parked between food stalls at the market, with no security or anyone in attendance. How far would this get before being hijacked in SA?

Gladstone is also home to the last Woollies or any other decent shops that we'll be seeing for quite some time. So we've rented an ugly little Nissan Juke for a few days while we stay here loading up with heaps of groceries, gas for the stove, diesel for the engine, petrol for the dinghy, water and other odds and ends. 

Since we have a car for four days we're taking the opportunity to do a few touristy things. We took a lovely walk through the local botanical gardens and a well preserved bit of forest.