Sailing North: Burnett Heads

5^th July 2011

Burnett Heads Boat harbour.

Writing yesterdays blog at sunride

We left Kingfisher Bay at dawn and motor sailed to Bundaberg. We were rewarded for our devotion by a beautiful sunrise. The wind was light but filled during the day and we probably sailed jib only for about 5 hours before it headed and we had to motor. Bundaberg was to be a short stopover so rather than use the Mid Town Marina we opted initially to just anchor in the mouth of the Burnett river. Once on approach though anchorages didn’t exactly jump out at us. Burnett Heads harbour did though so we called them and secured the fuel wharf for the night. What a find this turned out to be! The very old marina has no casual berths, they are mostly liveaboards who don’t appear to have been to sea in years. The manager, Tony was on the fuel wharf to help us with our lines, helped us refuel, showed us the showers and advised us on the local gossip. The Blue Water club has a great view, just across the basin but no food. The Hotel was about 15 minutes away and has great food, and a courtesy bus. And he was right!

I do have a couple of old friends who live near here and I called them on the off chance to see if they could join us for dinner. (I have to stop saying Old Friends. The are younger than me. Friends of long standing.)  Alas, they were in Brisbane.

We visited the very friendly Blue Water Club and had a couple of sundowners before hiking to the hotel. Burnett Heads is tiny and the pub, the IGA, the garage and the take away were the only shops in the High street. The pub had a public bar and a slightly better lounge with only some very regulars propping it up. From the street I could see another bar through the windows, adjacent to the lounge. This turned out to be a large dining room with laid tables. We tied to make a booking. They were fully booked. What! It must seat 60 which would have to be the entire population of the town. We can sit you in the games room off the dining room. We accepted, ordered a very nice bottle of Sav Blanc at $14 and looked at the menu. Tuesday Nights Two for the Price of One. We both had Atlantic Salmon beautifully prepared for less than $10 each. Another bottle of that cheeky little white and we wobbled off home. We have a big day tomorrow by my calculations.