A Sandy Aventure

After church today, Sean and I were up for a bit of adventure so we decided to go to this place called 9 Mile Beach. We attempted to go here once before on a Sunday afternoon outing. It is in a town called Byfield that is about 30 kilometers north of Yeppoon. Some people had told us that Byfield was beautiful and we should go there. So we decided to listen to the advice and head out there. Well, it turns out that there is NOTHING in Byfield. Wait, I take that back, there is a sad excuse for a general store...that's it. So we saw this sign for 9 Mile Beach which was 30 something kilometers away so we decided to take the road. The whole time I was keeping my eye on the fuel gauge. I asked Sean if he thought we could make it and he assured me that we could make it. To make a long story short, Sean soon realized that we were going to be stuck in the middle of no where with no gas and no cell service. So, we turned around and decided that we would go another time.

That brings us to today...We made sure that we had enough gas and headed out around 4. We heard that you have to have 4 wheel drive to go, and thankfully we do! Once you hit the turn off for 9 Mile Beach the road becomes dirt. About 10 km in, the road started getting bad. We were really enjoying it though because it was really bumpy and there were lots of curves. I started getting nervous when the road turned from dirt and rock to sand but I kept my mouth shut. Then, we turned the corner and oh boy! There was a hill with really soft sand and the tire tracks were not very defined. I looked at Sean and noticed that he was nervous as well. I told Sean that I wasn't too sure and he immediately decided that we needed to turn around, we were not going to make it! That's when we got stuck. Yep, stuck in the middle of no where with the sun setting and we weren't sure if we even had cell phone reception. Even if we found someone to help us, it would be dark by the time that they got there. We got out of the car and looked around at our very limited options. There was no good place to turn around so we decided that our best option was to back up until we found a place. We tried a few times and the car kept stalling so we had to get out and dig under the tires. Finally, Sean was able to back the car up a bit while I stood outside and prayed. He told me to hop back in and we were going to back up until we found a place. Thank goodness it wasn't too far before we found a good place to turn around. I am so thankful that we got out of there, because we really had NO idea what to do if we didn't!!

When we got home we looked up some information about the place, as well as pictures to find out what we are missing! Turns out that if you let air out of your tires, it helps get through the sand! Good to know!! It also suggests traveling with a buddy in case you get stuck...again, good to know. So, we are determined to make it ALL the way to 9 Mile Beach, but sadly today was not the day. On the bright side, we saw a random cow in the middle of the road, saw 4 kangaroos hop across the path and a gorgeous sunset. Overall, it was a great day and I am so so thankful that we were able to get out of the sand and make it home!!

I was able to take some pictures off someone's blog to show you what we were trying to get to. I was too scared at the time to take pictures of the road!! But here they are!!

I think is probably close to where we got stuck....but where we were looked worse and the tracks were not defined they like are here!!

Isn't the beach beautiful??

Look at the view!

This is the beautiful sunset we saw once we got back onto the good road! What a good ending to the day :)