Today we are sitting at Gympie waiting for cyclone Alfred to make up its mind about landfall and an apt time to publish this post as there will be plenty of debris created on our beaches.

Another visit to one of our favourite places Wreck rock, our fifth time here, in the very wonderful Endeavour national park Queensland, there are three camp areas here looking north towards Agnes waters is Flat rock and Middle rock and here we are at Wreck rock again. The weather has not been as kind this time as it has been just a bit of wind and some higher than usual tides, as usual the camp area is great very clean not so crowded only a couple of others and some day trippers, and the ever-present lace monitors.

We were here this time for a 8 days and I must say that the first time we were here I did not notice the problem that I am about to introduce you to but this is not a new thing here Im sure. IApart from the National parks the area is under the not so watchful eye of the Gladstone shire and maybe a bit of the Burnett region; The beaches and sand dunes on this stretch of coast are nursery for the green back and flat back turtles, so there are Turtle monitoring stations all along the beaches, and I have to say that this is the first time that we have been here and not had the volunteer’s camped here to monitor the nests.

This area is also the start of the real surfing beaches north of the New South Wales border in Queensland,  so as well as the National parks rangers and the Turtle monitoring people there are plenty of surfers from Agnes waters to Bundaberg as well as travellers using the beaches.

So by now you are wondering what is this bloke getting to, well i’ll be blunt

the beaches that I mentioned at the start are THE MOST POLLUTED BEACHES THAT I HAVE SEEN in our travels around our great country. Not only polluted , but mistreated by most who visit here, on this visit I met a man who not only loves the area he actively cleans it up, which is more than I can say for most of the others I have previously mentioned.

The pollution I am talking about is Plastic and plenty of it, every day there is a new batch deposited by the high tide to collect not just a handful but bags fill  , the photos are what we,  Jim and I collected in about six days and from only around 300 METERS of beach, 

I would like to apologise  on behalf of Jim and I for only getting to such a small area but I am a few days short of seventy seven and Jim looks likes he shades me by a few years and its been hot. But what about the regulars, well according to a ranger that Jim spoke to the “beach” is not National Parks responsibility, more on that a bit later, on to the turtle nest monitors, I may be tarring a few people with the same brush here but this is my experience, last trip 2022 after myself and a couple of young campers had collected a few bags of rubbish, that the “turtle nest monitors had been driving there buggies through “ for a few days we were trying to dig out this very large piece of rope that had some trawl net around it, obviously buried by the high tide, we had excavated a fairly large hole in the sand around it but it was to heavy for three of us to pull out, the nest watchers were coming back from their watching and we tried to get the first buggy to stop: No go, one of the young men helping all but threw himself in front of the next one and with a lot of complaining  I think the wine and bickies were out,  he let us tie it to the buggy and we got half a trawl net out of the hole, he left us to get it to a place where it would not get washed back and could be retrieved.

Jim told me a similar story of last year where he had put four bags of plastic rubbish next to the park track, he had asked the ranger if he could dispose of it, ( sorry no can’t do that) but the ranger asked the turtle people to help, and they did but Jim got a lecture from one of them saying that they should not have to do this.

To the users of the beach and ocean, some of this group has saddened me this week, first to travellers, I was walking down to start collecting from the high tide on the first day and passed a couple of young English tourists camping here, a brief chat and I told them what I was doing and the young lass said Oh good we have collected a lot of plastic bottles and rubbish and put it on the path for the ranger, bonus lovely people, but the locals, the surfers so disappointing, on the weekend a few of the Agnes Waters surfers were here to catch a wave, day one crap surf, so we were talking about the area and the lack of waves,  I told them about how much plastic we had picked up and that there was so much more,  very small bits floating in the tide line:  So I asked them both if they would help with the plastic collection as it was their beach, surfer 1 said yes we see lots of the small bits out in the water all the time  “its not good”, surfer 2 nods his head and says, you know there is a bit of a wave just near the rocks what do you think, and off they went to flounder around in a 2 foot chop.

Day two about half a dozen board riders ( not surfers) joined the other two, no takers on the clean up but their girlfriends who had a shade cover managed to bury their rubbish including two plastic bags in the sand below the high tide mark.

Jim and I will finish our stay here this afternoon by once again walking the tide line and picking up what we can, but this is not about people looking after the ocean and the beach, this stuff comes from the rivers and creeks around here and is deposited on this great beach,  that is about 50 kilometres long and no one appears to be  caring, not the council, not the National parks not the turtle people who cannot grasp the fact that when the turtles hatch they have to fight or eat their way past this crap, and the people who use the beach and Mother ocean for their pleasure don’t seem to care or give back

Its definitely not about people like Jim and I, It should be about you and others who don’t walk past a plastic bag or an old plastic oil bottle or drink bottle, or see a problem where plastic waste can be washed out to sea and end up on a deserted beach like this to break down in to the smallest pretty shiny colourful most harmful lure that the ocean can present to its occupants.

As Jim said to me this morning If you won’t participate, don’t talk about it, If you get to this bit and come to the conclusion that I’m just another nutter that overreacts to this type of issue, just delete the link and let me know that you have and you definitely won’t get another rant from me.

Enjoy life BK