Pancake Creek

[Kyle]At 10pm, we pulled up the anchor for the last of what we hope is a long time and finally left Bundaberg with no intent of returning – at least not this year. {Maryanne: Bundaberg is a delight to visit, but we had definitely done all we could while waiting 6 weeks on our mail - especially since most of it was closed for Covid19 and we were doing our best to avoid human contact}

We had a long, slow, spinnaker-only sail to Pancake Creek, which is on the mainland at just about the same latitude as Lady Musgrave. We arrived just after high tide, when the place looks like any other big, wide river. As the water drops, the beaches grow and giant sand flats emerge from the river. The sand is sculpted into meandering waves by the water flow, leaving finger lakes and rivulets in the shallows.

Soldier Crabs and the beautiful sand flats - even more spectacular at sunset

Marching along these sands are armies of Soldier Crabs. Maryanne says they look like antelope on a mini Serengeti. Soldier Crabs are adorable. Their little, round bodies are cream and sky colored and are about the size of a cherry. Their first impulse when we approach is to run. If that doesn't work, they find a spot of soft sand and then corkscrew their way down until they are hidden. Their third choice is to ball up and freeze and hope we don't see them. If we do and pick one up, they are perfectly well behaved. They wait patiently to be put back down and seem to not even realize their little pincers could be used for defense.

On the next day's high tide, we went ashore and did the walk up to the Bustard Head lighthouse. It was nice as lighthouses go, gleaming white and sitting up on a picturesque clearing with a view of the coast.

The walk from the anchorage starts through some interesting lowland

The lighthouse, and the current volunteer caretakers (Denise & Terry)

We passed Terry and Denise, the volunteer caretakers. Since all tours had been suspended due to Covid-19, they were heading to the beach to fish for their dinner. They told us as much as they could about the lighthouse and it's colorful history without us actually being there to see what they were talking about. They also gave us the fantastic tip of continuing our walk past the lighthouse along the trail to the viewpoint on the other side.

From up there, we got incredible views of Jenny Lind Creek, a sandscape even more amazing than the one on the anchorage side. There's no way to get our boat in there, so this is how we get to see it.

Views of Jenny Lind Creek

The other cool thing was that the Blue Tiger butterflies were being especially abundant lately. Blue Tigers are thought to be the world's longest living butterfly genus. They are beautiful, but hard to get a good look at. When they are going, they are on a mission and don't stop for anything.

We finally got up close to some of the migrating Butterflies
The Blue Tiger (Tirumala hamata)

Well, it turns out they do actually stop at night. On our walk back to the boat, we finally got to get a good get a good look at them as hundreds covered the branches of their chosen trees, which seem to be the dry or dead ones. The effect was is if the forest had decided not to do autumn after all and just put the leaves back, except instead of green, they were pale blue.

We loved Pancake Creek and all our time there - ashore and on the flats

We spent another couple of days there, just for good measure. Low tide was coinciding nicely with sunset, so we were able to enjoy some rewarding walks on the flats under pink skies.