Leaving the coast we headed inland to Lismore. Sooner or later we had to cross the Great Dividing Range and we knew it would be challenging. The road to Lismore was narrow, winding and quite steep at times as we passed through incredibly lush country. You can see why the Hippies chose nearby Nimbin as their nirvana. When we arrived at the caravan park of our choice (with no booking) we discovered that caravan sites were closed for renovations. The friendly owner directed us to another caravan park nearby and soon we were settled in. Lismore is a big country town with an obvious Hippie and associated low socio-economic population. A significant part of our caravan park looked a bit like a slum and big steel bars on windows hinted that security might be an issue, ... read more

The drive from Bundaberg to Noosa Heads was easy and uneventful, except for a period where we were driving through smoke so thick it was almost like fog. Somewhere there must have been a bush fire but we saw nothing other than smoke. As the area becomes more built up the road regularly has multiple lanes and the amount of traffic has increased. Often we drive through speed limited areas so pulling a caravan is less of an issue. After setting up in the caravan park we went for a grocery shop and then decided to drive out to the actual Noosa Heads. The roads are now tight urban streets with lots of roundabouts. We were glad we had left the caravan behind. The road along a major river was lined with holiday apartments, bars and ... read more

It was a very windy drive from Balnagowan to Yeppoon, with the wind hitting the front passenger side. This pushed up our fuel consumption and made the van less stable. Still, we managed to pass a number of vehicles; admittedly they were the slow backpacker type vans and a prime mover that had obvious mechanical trouble. Earlier this year Yeppoon was hit by a major cyclone. Some building damage was still being restored and some trees had obviously lost all of their branches. As we approached our caravan park along the foreshore road it suddenly turned into one lane only as the sea had carved the land away right up to the edge of the road. The cliff face on the inland side had also been made unstable. However for the most part there was little ... read more

Arriving on a Saturday we had a day and a half to spend with Tristan before he returned to work. During the week we see little of Tristan as he starts work at 6am. Since his mine is 60km away and they car-pool, Tristan gets up at 4:30am and is out the door by 5:20am. A 10 hour standard day and the return drive results in Tristan getting home by 5:30pm. Such a long day means getting to bed early is essential. We find this highly amusing as when he was at Uni Tristan would often only get to bed at 4:30am! How things change. Each morning Tristan leaves in a clean high-vis uniform and each evening he returns blackened from coal dust. Dirty clothes are shed on the back deck on the way to a ... read more

After many days of relatively flat driving we now drove through undulating hills that eventually became significant ranges; we had entered the Central Highlands. Much of this drive was through native pine forest (the biggest native pines we have ever seen) or through wooded cattle country. Rugged escarpments towered in the distance and the Dawson river cut deep gorges below the bridges we crossed. We must have crossed the Dawson river on at least three occasions. Despite some steep climbs and descents our fuel consumption was very good. At this stage Greg has worked out how to drive economically, with one eye on the instantaneous consumption readout. Cruise control works OK only on the flat. On undulating terrain a steady throttle that allows the speed to alter gives much better results. We pulled into the modest ... read more