On a typical day on the beach we would take long walks exploring the coastline with no exception for today during our stay in Kinka Beach. This small sleepy coastal village is nestled among Causeway Lake, towards Yeppoon, and a compact patch of mangroves, rocks and tropical forest at the other end to Emu Park.
It has a wide open beach and swallows calm water and at low tide the sea just seems to disappear and the Great Keppel Island just getting closer. From those rock pools at the southern end of the beach, next to the mangroves, we saw yesterday a guy coming out the water with a speargun and a huge crayfish so we reckon we could catch something too, not a crayfish but as suggested by other fishermen bream, flathead and whitting.
Today at low tide we walked for more than an hour through the hard sand left uncover by the water to reach those rocks from where we casted our line.

We waited patiently for hours but not a bite until the sun started to go down and the tide to came back then, magically, the fishes starting take the bait one after another. We knew we had to make our way back before dark but it was always “only one more”. At last we caught 5 good size breams when we decided to walk back. We run into two other fishermen that offered us a huge flathead as they didn’t like the meat. How we could say no? After a short chitchat they gave us the fish and were off on a 4WD, us instead on foot.

It was sunset and the colours of the sky were just incredible, all the different reflections of the changing light on the sea were so beautiful that we could not resist taking few snaps, well more than few.

The water was rising fast and it had now covered our previous path through the solid sand. We had to rush quickly though a open patch of mangroves in order to reach a sandy track where we got a glimpse earlier of the big jeep vanishing. As we saw some big metal cages stuffed with rotten fish’s heads we froze. For a second Marta kept quiet. We thought at first at some crocodile’s trap but they were honestly too small for a 2mt-long croc so we reassured and assumed it was only for crabs, phew.

It was now dark but “likely” the full moon was shining at the most and the white sand reflecting its light, at least we could see something. We finally reached a sandy track and we followed it for about 30 mins.. till a dead end: in front of us there was a river estuary, damn it! It even crossed my mind for a sec to traverse it but after spied it out with a wood stick I realised it was just too deep and crazy to do it.

In the silent night the only sound we could hear was the splash of the fishes jumping out the water just next to us, hopefully just leaping from happiness not cause they were chased by some frightening Australian wildlife (maybe a croc?) .. not an inviting sign.

We distinguished in the distance a bridge with a street light so there was definitely a way out, plus we saw the 4WD disappearing earlier, we just needed it to figure it how. We also thought they might have cross the river at low tide so we tried to follow the watercourse through the mangrove forest but it was getting thicker and harder to get it through. We tried different “paths”; we walked for more than an hour in all directions trying to find those tyres’ marks but with no luck. It was like be stuck in a maze, we were nearly lost.

Marta overacting imagination started panicking and reaching for the phone for help as hopeless trusting my sense of orientation. I couldn’t just give it up and I asked her to spare the last sign of the phone battery for the worst.

We traced soon another path through the forest where at first we came from and we got going, it was our last resource. We have been trekking now for 2 hours. Marta dishearten but still carrying our dinner, though I bet, for once, she was hungry no more.

The path began gradually to enlarge and the sand left way to gravel. After a while we noticed some clear traces of pneumatic, an old abandoned dish washer on the side of the dirty road, someone definitely arrived there by car. Finally we heard cars’ noises and the track open up to a paved road. Thanks God! We were exhausted, our legs full of scratches probably from when we struggled among the mangroves, our feet blistered (we were on our flip-flop), still few miles away from the campground but we could not care less; we were safe and I was never so happy to see some car passing by.

I started even joking with Marta who was still dragging the bait for the crocodiles: our bag full of fishes. We later found out that nearby there is the Koorana crocodile farm ... ups.