Breakfast at Pancake Creek

A catamaran at Pancake Creek

We hadn't planned to spend a week at Pancake Creek but because we were already delayed, missing some important dates, and we liked it so much we decided we may as well stay and enjoy the experience.

This is one of those special places you can only get to by boat.  The few campers we met on the beach had carried everything up the creek by tinny.  The amphibious LARC tours operate out of 1770, quite a distance away, and bring tourists up to the lighthouse we can see from our anchorage.

It's a well-marked channel through the sandy shoals and we've anchored well into the creek in about 20 feet at high tide. The water is beautifully clean and clear.  We can see flathead, stingrays, sharks and crabs easily against the sandy bottom.  There are turtles, a dolphin and a dugong in the anchorage.  We've spent our time exploring, walking to the Bustard Head Lighthouse and fishing each day.  At Aircraft Beach we saw four or five sharks, about 6 feet in length,  just behind the beach break in very shallow water.

Each evening we're awed by the magnificent sunsets, made even more intense by the smoke of bushfires that have been burning for days in the National Park a few miles away.  Rarely do we see the occupants of the boats that come and go.  The weather has been cold so we can only assume they are resting, staying warm below decks, before sailing north again to the Whitsundays.  They are missing something special right under their noses.  It's so relaxing here but eventually we need to move south and head south for Bundaberg.

Leaf and charcoal dust creates a landscape on the sand.