SUNRISE AND GOODBYES

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Since we were right on the beach we all got up to watch the sunrise together. When the alarm went off a 4.45am we were pleased not to have far to walk. Sunrise was stunning as the orange and red glow from the sun danced on top of the pools of water left behind by the sea. We were surprised to see how many people were up at this time in the morning - dog walkers, joggers and another couple from the campsite - although they must have slept through their alarm. They turned up long after the sun had begun to rise and left just before all the colours started to change, which seemed a bit of a waste of time.

After a good nap the rest of the day was spent playing in the pool and sunbathing next to it. We were all trying to conserve money. Andy and I because we had no idea how long we would have to wait here and Gem and Kieran because they had just forked out for some pricey and unexpected flights. I sent Andy and Kieran to the shops requesting that they bring some cheep meat back to go in tonight’s pasta. When they returned they had bought some beef sausages. I decided to throw a few things in a pan and create what would be known as sausageanaise. Cooking was proving to be a little difficult. There were a couple of inquisitive possums living in the tree next to our pitch who kept creeping closer to the pans when they thought we were not looking. We shoed them away but they always came back. Sausageanaise ended up being quite a hit….and not only with us. Our fury neighbours also took quite a liking to it. As we sat around the table Kieran suddenly shouted “WHOA…. THERES A POSSUM IN THE COLANDER!” These are not normally words you expect to hear together! As we all looked round, there sat in the colander looking right at us was indeed a possum. He looked like he knew he had been caught out and soon made a dash for it. It was a shame hemoved before we could grab the camera.


Gemma and Kieran didn’t need to be at the airport till late afternoon. When we drove through Mackay town it hardly looked like the kind of place that you could spend a whole day so we wondered what we would do after checking out of the campsite at 10am. Gem and Kieran explained to the campsite owner how they had to cut their trip short and fly home and she kindly allowed us to stay on the campsite until we needed to leave for the airport. This meant we could spend another afternoon in the pool working on our tans.

The hours passed quickly and soon came the time to pack up and make our way to the airport. With great sadness we hugged, waved them goodbye and watched them disappear into the airport - we were alone once again. We were sad that our planned journey had not turned out the way we expected it to but we also realised how lucky we had been. If we had not stopped and took a little longer in some places we could have quite easily been in the middle of the floods. Also we had made the right choice leaving Yeppoon as shortly after leaving both roads in and out of town were flooded and there was no way out. However sorry we were feeling for ourselves we had not lost everything we own and we were alive and well - many people in Queensland were not so lucky.

We were feeling a little lost when they had gone. I would now have to sit in the front, be in charge of the map and I had no one to have a glass of wine with! For so long now our journey had been full of wondering if we would make it through the roads in time. Now Andy and I had to decide whether we would carry on or cut our losses and try and sell Hilda early. We were in the middle of nowhere - not a good place to look for a buyer, so we decided to head further north and see what sort of offers we may get on Hilda. We would then work out if it was worth flying back to Melbourne to collect our rucksacks and catch our flights - this would mean spending longer in Melbourne than planned which is not a cheep city - or if it would be better to book flights to Asia from where we were and leave Australia early. Right now it all felt too big to think about and make decisions on straight away. We drove late into the night, found a free parking spot and slept on it.

The new day did not bring with it any new ideas. We were quite close to Townsville (again) so we decided to go back to the campsite we stayed at before and check out the market for selling vans. Last time we stayed at the campsite we had some good luck - our sandfly bites healed quickly and we found some bargain flights to and around Asia - we were hoping that it would prove to be a lucky place once more. When we arrived the owner recognised us and was interested to hear the story behind our turning up once again. He put us back on our old pitch and we even had some of the same neighbours who were also surprised to see us back.

A look on the internet told us that the market for selling vans was not good here. The weather was not helping things, it was out of season and most people looking for vans were in cairns or had bypassed Queensland altogether. A flood of biblical proportions does little for tourism and in turn would do little for the price we could expect to get.

The following day we started preparing Hilda for sale. We cleaned her inside and out and put together an advert. In the evening we checked the road conditions one last time before placing the advert online. To our amazement the Bruce highway through Rockhampton was going to be open to all traffic the next day. The big trip was back on and we would leave in the morning - this place really was lucky!

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