After a fabulous cooked breakfast of bacon, eggs and a heap of other stuff by Marcus, we packed up and headed off to find the highway to Brisbane. We planned to have lunch somewhere close to Brisbane but we couldn't find a park anywhere so we just kept on going towards the Gold Coast. We thought we had taken a turn off the highway to a park / reserve but it ended up being a new housing estate (there's a lot of new houses up here) but we stopped and had lunch anyway. We found one of those huge shopping centres and wandered around there for a while and then headed off to find our caravan park. Forgot that it was now peak hour traffic and it took ages to get anywhere. Finally got to the ... read more

We had stopped on the edge of the road that went from 1770 to Bundaberg (an old section of road that had been bypassed or realigned). There was quite a bit of traffic going past at night but no glaring headlights and we slept well. Georgi wasn't feeling too flash (she'd caught what I had been suffering from for the last week) and we tried to get a medical appointment in Bundaberg without any success. We did stop in Bundaberg and buy a replacement teapot (the previous one made of glass had jumped out of the cupboard and smashed itself to pieces) and have coffee. It had warmed up by the time we got to Gympie and we had just enough time to grab a quick lunch before the doctors appointment. The parking in Gympie is ... read more

As we drove out of Rockhampton (on a new piece of causeway) we were confronted by yet another Brahman bull wishing us goodbye. There seemed to be bulls everywhere in Rocky; saying hello, goodbye, on buildings, everywhere! We drove down the coast and left the Bruce Highway to enter Gladstone on a "new" road. This made it even trickier for Georgi to get her bearings, so we drove around the town of Gladstone and through the CBD, stopping to have coffee at what used to be a hotel. Gladstone is very industrialised (and accordingly has the reputation of being heavily polluted) and the smokestacks were certainly pouring out plenty of fumes as we toured the town, stopping at the previously frequented places of Georgi (including the family homes). It had all changed so much. We continued ... read more

We were hoping to make some good distance today, getting up early and just driving south without any planned stops. We drove through Ayr's twin town of Home Hill and then on to Bowen. From there we went to Proserpine and thought about going to Airlie Beach / Shute Harbour but we stayed on the highway. We drove through sugar cane plantations that were being harvested and got to Mackay mid-afternoon. We pushed on further, hoping to find a quiet spot near a creek or beach. We heard that there was a good camping spot near Ilbilbie so we went looking for that but the sun started to set and we decided to pull in near a relatively dry river bed. The next morning, we looked out the window and noticed two young guys had launched ... read more

We camped the previous night near Murray Falls so we took the opportunity of visiting the waterfall first thing in the morning. It's a little way off the highway (and the last few kilometres are gravel) but it sounded like a nice place to see. Access is restricted but there are huge pools where the cascading water has eroded the rocks to make a few swimming pools (although they would be very dangerous in the wet). We took some photos and drove back to the highway. We went the other side of the highway and down to the beach (at Hinchinbrrok Channel). A really fabulous location although it was misty and a storm threatened out on the water. Further down the road we came across another vehicle parked in a ditch. Seems the locals have difficulty ... read more