We woke early in Kimba and fired up the kettle, how good is a cuppa when you are cold and waiting for sunrise? A bit of light rain had fallen during the night but we stayed nice and warm especially as the daily packup routine began although we are getting pretty good at this now. Once everything had put in it’s place we fired up Luxxy and headed out of town for our next destination. We thought maybe Ceduna today but as it turned out the call of the laundry was strong and we detoured to a town that reminded me of my childhood home Hervey Bay. Streaky Bay is a quiet little town surrounding a little bay that was used for exporting wheat and wool. In 1802 Matthew Flinders named Streaky Bay whilst on his voyage in the Investigator. In his log of 5 February 1802, he describes: "And the water was much discoloured in Streaks... and I called it Streaky Bay"
We booked into the Discovery Caravan Park and made use of the washing machines. A breeze began to blow and while I was undoing our awning to attach the tent I went to the rear of the ute to get a peg and the awning decided to twist itself around over the roof and sheer off the locating pin that holds our tent up. My average happiness meter plummeted as the thought of no tent was decidedly an unfun and uncomfortable idea. Thanks to some good old lateral thinking an Aldi wall bracket has now become a permanent addition to our setup, although the awning does look a little worse for wear. We were setup probably 6 metres from the water front so sitting in the gazebo doing nothing would be some peoles idea of heaven but I grew up in a little sleepy town like this and sitting is no fun so we walked to town and had a look. IGA, coffee shop, post office, op shop so time to head to back and we took the scenic route along the rock wall carved out by the sea and wind. A nice 5klm round trip from our base. We also did a bit of exploring and got the Hilux dirty and we explored further around the next bay. At 7.30pm a huge boom goes off across the park and then another and another. This Park has a starling problem, apparently these little birds arrive every evening at around 7 by there hundreds, stay the night, poop on everything that is parked near and tree and then move on. Thankfully we were nowhere any trees so we had no issues with poop or bird noise. The wind did increase that night which required the tent and awning to be pegged down just in case as I wasn’t made of Aldi brackets. I am not really sure if I would recommend Streaky Bay as some people love it but all I can say if you love Hervey Bay then you will love this place. It is quiet, quaint and slow moving but the local coffee shop makes a mean cappuccino. I must admit though while watching washing dry I got to read a large portion of Isiaiah which is always great. After some light rain in the night we woke early and packed up to move on.