Yesterday I brought my dear "Second Wind" up the beautiful Burnett River to her new home for maintenance and storage in the off season.
It is about a two hour trip up or down the river so going for a day sail from the mooring is not really an option but certainly not too big a task for a weekend sail.
She has been at anchor here in the Burnett Heads basin for the last 18 months. A great spot but it is due to be dredged fairly soon in preparation for the marina redevelopment. There of course in the centre is the fair "Second Wind".
The first task was to get her along side to lay the anchor and chain out to get the twists out and mud off them. That completed, wife and I shoved off and proceeded up river at around 8:30. The top of the tide in the town reach was due at 11:00 and ideally I wanted to be putting her on the mooring just after the top of the tide so that she would stream down river thereby making it easier to pick up the stern mooring.
Out and around the corner we go past the Port Marina and past the sugar export facility.
Just up stream of that is Corser Street where the houses have title deed to high water and licences for pontoons in front of them. There are probably 50 such properties along Corser Street and there are only a few of them that are still vacant blocks. You may be able to buy one of them for around $5-800,000.
Houses with pontoons and even slip ways have been sold from $1.3 mil to $2 mil in recent times. Bargain buying in comparison to most other locations in Australia where similar properties exist. I remember back in the late 80s early 90s we thought $50 k was too high a price to pay for a block there.
Immediately up stream of Corser Street is Bundaberg's Bum's Bay. That being said one must also say that most of length of the Burnett River up to the bridges is a Bum's Bay. Your choice of anchoring spot is determined by how close you want to be to a landing point.
This particular Bum's Bay section has a nice sandy landing beach and a good car parking area 100 metres away. The 50 odd acres of land just behind the beach has sugar cane growing on it. It also has a 100 plus year old multi title deed of quarter acre blocks on it. It has been in the same family of cane growers for the last 4 or 5 generations and they would never think of splitting it up and selling the blocks despite the fact it would make them multi millionaires.
Bum's Bay always attracts bums with dunger boats.
Passing a section of Port Authority land one encounters the Bundaberg Sailing Club. It has been there for many, many years and the club I believe has finally got freehold over the land. It is a very friendly club with excellent facilities including wash down slab, hard stand area, ramp and pontoon.
The committee of old conservative fuddy duddies seems to have gone and a bit newer generation of people are now in place.
Next we come to the narrowest part of the river where the sugar/cane ferry used to run on cables and which I drove for 4 seasons from 1998 to 2001. Despite the huge warning sign there were many boats that ran into the cables which could be lowered to allow passage of vessels.
Bundaberg Sugar had a licence for the crossing and vessel that was valid as long as that particular vessel was serviceable. They spent a fortune keeping it in survey as a licence for a new vessel would not be granted. Then along came the 2013 floods which swept it out to sea where it sank. Therefore no cable or ferry are present today.
North ramp.
South Ramp.
This brings us to Strathdee's (the farming family which owns the land there) or Rubyanna (the creek that runs in there). This is a hook in the river that becomes very popular during flooding of the river. People who are prepared to live on board during the flood go there to anchor up as close in to the bank as possible to avoid the flotsam and carnage that comes down in the main channel of the river. They still get things crashing into them in the middle of the night.
Some people have it sweet. This guy has about 30 acres of river front.
There is a big gap with photos here as I was just following channel markers, there was not much of interest and I was a bit preoccupied with my water temp alarm going off all the time. I did a big service on my raw water cooling system last year and I don't think the problem is there. My water intake leaves a lot to be desired so it will be a focus of my efforts very soon.
If you are coming up the Burnett River and follow the recommended track on Navionics you should not have any groundings. We came up on a making tide and I was watching my sounder all the way up. I think the lowest sounding I got was 3.5 metres. My draught is 1.67 metres and my transducer is about 500 mm below water level. So in my estimation vessels with a draught up to 2 metres should pass safely up or down the river with a making tide from half tide.
We were approaching our mooring but it was not yet full tide so I decided to go right up the town reach and take a few piccys for you guys.
Our mooring is in the centre of pic consisting of the two larger yellow buoys with link line between and three small whit floats on it. The land below the houses is water front reserve and has road access. A few of the house owners have yachts on moorings in this area.
The Bundaberg Rum Bond store just opposite. Don't try getting in there. It has an electric fence around it and lots of CCTV cameras.
These water front properties are mostly owned by trawler operators. About 25 years ago the Qld government announced it would no longer be dredging the mid reaches of the Burnett River. This was at a time when there were possibly 100 or more trawlers working out of the Burnett River. With that, the number of season closures and rising fuel costs, that fleet has been decimated to where there are probably only a dozen trawlers still operating out of here. Sad stuff.
There were big sailing ships that used to come right up to the town reach of the Burnett 100 years ago. The building of barrages on the river has buggered it up sadly. Where the river once had sandy beaches are now mangroves and you dare not cut them down.
Bundaberg Rowers Club and Rowers on the River Restaurant.
The Spinnaker Restaurant next door which has sent many a man broke.
The town reach proper.
The public pontoon at which one may tie up for a limited time and has water supplied to it but no electricity.
This is the new Bundaberg Ferry pontoon. A local family operates an old former Moreton Bay Island Ferry doing river cruises the length of the river. Originally it was from this location but it took so long for the pontoon to be rebuilt after the floods that they found a different location to work from and this piece of council owned infrastructure is sitting there doing nothing. The access gate is locked but it has power and water running to it.
I am going to use it as a work berth and if the council comes along and asks me what I am doing my reply will be "Defraying my rates!!!" of which I am paying $12,000 per annum for not much return.
The Burnett Riverside Motel and H2O Restaurant. Very popular and likely the best in town.
This is all that remains of Midtown Marina after the 2011 flood took out half of it and the 2013 flood took out the rest of it.
Bundaberg Foundry where several of the Navy's Landing Craft Heavy were built. Poor old Bundaberg. She is just a shadow of her former self.
Bundabeg RSL where members having a veterans or pensioners card can get a choice of very nice meals on a Wednesday night for $5.50 in first class surroundings.
Bundaberg Slipways that still operates and is up for sale for not too bad a price I believe. Someone with the money and the energy could turn this back into a very good business.
A small marina pontoon owned by one of the local trawler operators. Quite remarkably it did not get washed away in the floods and as I recall still had one or two boats tied to it.
This is the end of the line for us stick boat owners. The Bundaberg Traffic Bridge, like the original Manly Ferries in Sydney was built in Auld Blighty and shipped out here. This was in line with the British Colonialists policy of raping the colonies for their raw materials, value adding to them and selling it back to the colonies and thereby inhibiting their development.
This Quest 8 sold about 12 months ago for $4,000, was brought up the river from Burnett Heads and I don't think has moved since. It is not the reason for the photo though. Where it is located there is a plan to install 70 pile berths. There is some local opposition to it with the notion that the next flood will take them out. The biggest trouble with boats in the Burnett River is that people park them here and then disappear. When flood events happen here most of the boat owners are uncontactable.
Approaching our mooring from up river.
A picture here for DrRog of my mates Adams 31 with solid dodger.
These next photos are of the most gorgeous little yacht you are ever likely to see which is newly arrived yesterday in the Distillery Reach of the Burnett River.
It has been 18 months in the making but this vision is surely worth 91 cents per week.
Your sponsors Cisco and Second Wind hope you fine folk have enjoyed this pictorial sojourn on the beautiful Burnett River.
Feel free to copy and archive any of the photos for future reference if visiting Bundaberg and be sure to look us up when here.
Cheers Cisco.
Just so relieved it was me and not one of the kids.
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