Monday 15th February 2022
The wind was howling when we awoke at 630am today. It had rained over night. We had forecast 35-50km/hr winds and gale wind warning on the Fraser Coast.
It was still a balmy 28 degrees despite the wind. We packed our bags, loaded the car and headed off to check out a small part of town before heading to Fraser Island.
Urangan
We went to Urangan, a small town within the Harvey Bay District.
History of the pier
Urangan pier was opened in 1917 to export sugar, coal and timber. It measured 1124 metres long and had two sheds at the head, to hold up to 2,000 tonne of cargo. The first crane was tested on the pier in 1920. In 1929 Urungan became the busiest coal port on the Eastern seaboard shipping more then 100,000 tonne of coal a year.
1958 a bulk loading sugar port was built in Bundaberg which lead to the phasing out of sugar shipments from Urungan.
1961 sugar and coal exports completely ceased. Petroleum shipments picked up substantially. Caltex built an oil terminal at the end of the pier and berthed tankers piped oil onto road tankers for distribution.
By 1980 all exports had stopped. In 1985 the pier was decommissioned and ordered to be demolished. The last 880m was saved from demolition.
Fraser Island Vehicle Barge
At 1200 we checked into the barge and waited to be loaded on with our car. Madeline was very excited that boat could take the car to the island.
Kingfisher Bay Resort
We arrived at Kingfisher Bay Wharf at 2pm. We checked into our hotel room.
Madeline was running around with shear excitement in the hotel room. She chose her bed, the queen size, and she was sleeping with daddy. Mummy got stuck in the king single all on her own.
We went for a walk to explore the resort and ended up back at the wharf where we walked on the sand, watched thousands of bait fish swim around and saw stingrays gliding under the wharf.
We ordered some pizza as takeout for dinner and enjoyed in room dining.
Madeline went to sleep by 645 and Jason and I rested for the evening.
Tomorrow
We are planning to drive to Happy Valley, Eli Creek and the Maheno shipwreck.
It is around 2.5hrs of driving so we are expecting to be gone for the whole day.
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