From Townsville to Airlie Beach-quick Georgina entry

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We made our way from Townsville down to Airlie Beach. The landscape changed quite quickly with the appearance of large sugar cane fields. Gav was in his element, explaining to the kids about the cane cutters, how the sugar cane becomes sugar and showing them the sugar cane trains. He had completed some work on this area when investigating impacts on the Great Barrier Reef so was interested to see it all again. It was good for them to see the beginning of the sugar process. Many sugar can farms look like they have just been left-a sign of the hard times for many working on the land.

We can't get over the number of road works that we have seen since hitting QLD (even through the outback). We think that much of this is probably post cyclone and flood money.

We could hardly get more of a contrast between Airlie Beach and some of the outback towns that we have been through. At the start, I really missed the quiet towns, small and unglamorous caravan parks, small shopping strips and dry interior. However, this is a great place to explore the reef. Certainly no lack of water now!

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