Secrets of Kurrimine

When I lay snuggled up in my bed at 4 o’clock in the morning, how can I tell it’s going to be a perfect Tropical North Queensland day and that the sea conditions are calm?    I know when the first of the noisy Kurrimine Beach Tractors chugs right past my bedroom window towing a fishing boat rattling around on it’s trailer! 

If you have never heard of Kurrimine Beach before – well what I can tell you is, fishing rules!  The standard greeting in this town is not “G’Day” but “W’at d’ya catch”!    The first thing that you will notice about our town is the number of red tractors, every house has one and some even have two.   There are more boats in our town than cars.  

It is rather hard to fathom on first approach why we all need tractors.   The roads around here are pretty good  and I’m pretty sure they are an overkill to mow our blocks!   We all have tractors to launch our fishing boats from the beach!   Yes we do have a perfectly good boat ramp in town but why spend 10 minutes getting to the mouth of the creek and waste 10 minutes of perfectly good fishing time?

So what’s so great about the fishing here – well for all the blokes out there:

• We offer beach, estuary and reef fishing all within 800m of the holiday park. 
• Our closest reef is only 800m off-shore – you only need to bring a tinnie to fish the reef.
• July to September (‘ish) is Mackerel season – some boats are only out for little more than an hour and then come home with their bag limits for the day. 
• The hardest choice of the day is whether you prefer coral trout, mangrove jack or a nice mud crab for dinner!
• You should consider joining our fishing club, one of the largest in North Queensland.  For your $10 membership fee you will get inside information on our fishing spots, new mates, free entry into members draws and fishing stories by the bag full.  Not to mention that the fishing clubs meets at the local pub!

Now ladies unless you fish you might not think there are any benefits for us but there are:

• We get peace and quiet to enjoy a cup of coffee with friends, read a book or whatever else we want to do…
• In Kurrimine Beach it seems it is a man’s job to clean and cook the fish he has caught.   So apart from having to toss a quick salad, it means we are off the hook for dinner too!
• All the fresh sea air will mean that hubby will be really tired at the end of the day, so he goes off to bed for an early night so you can settle down and watch Downton Abbey, MKR or whatever is your favorite without the background commentary and moaning on how boring/stupid the programme is!  Really ladies, I ask you, aren’t all episodes of Border Security or The Force basically the same?

 Now, you can’t fish all day every day…  so we have a host of beautiful places to visit for a day’s exploring:

• Paronella Park is approximately 20kms from our park.  The ruins of a Spanish castle with an inspirational story.
• Innisfail, our closest major town has all the major supermarkets and shops and some of the most beautiful examples of art-deco in the country.
• Explore our stunning local waterfalls or take one of the beautiful bushwalks through the Misty Mountains.
• Drive the historical Canecutter Way and discover the myriad of small arts and crafts and local produce shops.
• Take a cruise around beautiful Dunk and Bedarra Island with one of our local larrikins.

 So if you are heading north this winter why not pop in to see us and say “W’at d’ya catch”!

How many towns in Australia say they are the closest town to the Great Barrier Reef?   Off the top of my head I can list 1770, Mission Beach, Port Douglas, Cape Tribulation and Cooktown to name just a few.   How many of these towns though, boast the fact that you can walk to the reef?

Well here at Kurrimine Beach last month we did just that.   A group of six guests accompanied me out to King Reef.   This was a whole new experience for me.  To visit the reef usually involves a boat trip with seventy plus other guests and a cost in excess of $150!   Well here at Kurrimine Beach you can walk out and explore the reef for free – that’s absolutely no charge.   The only rule that we have here at the Kurrimine Beach Holiday Park is that anyone who picks up a crayfish must share it at happy hour!

To walk out to the reef the tides must be lower than 0.4m.  We walked out about an hour prior to low tide, most of the way we were mid calf to mid thigh deep in water.  There were a couple of spots where members of our group found some deeper spots which added to our amusement.   The walk out to the reef is quite a hard walk as you are pushing though the water but it is well worth it.  It took our group just over 30 minutes to reach the reef.  

We had just over an hour to explore the reef.   At first the reef just looks like exposed seaweed but it is actually a mass of rock pools to be explored.  All of the exposed reef is hard coral so is fine to walk on.  In the rock pools we found crabs, cowrie shells, clams, giant horned starfish, common starfish, brittle starfish, octopus, numerous fish and different sorts of corals.    We also saw turtles and a sea snake on the walk out.   Whilst not the prettiest of reefs it is fascinating to explore.    Fay, one of the guests that came with us, has been collecting seashells for over 50 years.  She found things that she had never seen before!  Of course,  there is also the chance to pick yourself up a King Reef Painted Cray but don’t forget the park rules!

The other dates for walking to the reef this year are:

June 2012 – 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th and 6^th

July 2012 – 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, 30^th and 31^st

August 2012 – 1^st, 2^nd, 29^th and 30^th

We accompany our guests to the reef and have a safety boat on hand if you find the walk to strenuous.   For more information call Tracey or Kay on 07 4065 6166.

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