Good afternoon world, my name is Tracey and as well as being a "virgin blogger" I am the new manager at Kurrimine Beach Holiday Park.
My family and I arrived in Kurrimine Beach three months ago; we only came here for two nights but are still here and have no intention of leaving! With the Great Barrier Reef on our doorstep my husband, Corey, can fish to his hearts content; my children Bradley (9) & Hannah (4) have all the toys they could want in their own backyard plus a beautiful beach to explore. As for me, my gym workout is a stroll along unspoilt Kurrimine Beach. On my drive to work I don't get out of second gear, not bad for someone who used to commute from the NSW Central Coast to Sydney Airport each day!
We left our last caravan park on the New South Wales Mid North Coast in June, we'd had 11 floods in 4 years. Our plan was to spend 12 months exploring this beautiful country in our caravan but it seems we've got a bad case of Kurriminitis!
Kurrimine is untouched by major development. It has the old-world flavour of the tropical north with larrikins and personalities aplenty. It is a very laid back place, and is good if you want to get away from the hype of the city. As we seem to be putting down roots in this idyllic location, and inspired by an old postcard and a recent visit to Paronella Park I am on a mission to uncover more about this area.
Here are a few interesting facts that I have uncovered since being here - perhaps you know of some more?
Lots of towns in North Queensland advertise that they are the closest to the Great Barrier Reef - how many of them tell you that you can walk out to it on very low tides at certain times of the year? Well at Kurrimine Beach when the low tide is 0.4m or lower that's exactly what you can do - you might even pick up one of our famous painted crays for dinner!
Kurrimine Beach was once densely forested but now only small patches of
remnant forest remain. One of these is the Conservation Park just across the road from our holiday park. Explore this area by walking the Paddy Illich track. There is an abundance of bird life, lizards and pesky wallabys that eat the lettuce plants that my husband planted in our garden!
Kurrimine Beach is within the traditional lands of the Ma:Mu Aboriginal
people. The Paddy Illich track is named after a Ma:Mu elder who received
a bravery award in 1959 for rescuing a 67 year old man, Robert Ronald,
from drowning in the sea.
The locality was originally named Murdering Point, after the
discovery of two bodies in 1878, believed to be the survivors of a
wreck, the 'Riser', which foundered on Kings Reef, a few kilometres from
Kurrimine Beach. Murdering Point has been mostly submerged by coastal
sand drift, and its renaming as Kurrimine appears to have occurred in
the postwar years. It is thought that the name was derived from an
Aboriginal expression meaning sunrise.
If you know any fascinating facts about Kurrimine or the surrounding area I would love to hear from you.
Until the next time...
Tracey
