Blogs from Mackay, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 4

Well, there isn't much new to report since our last entry, seeing as life in Mackay has just become a routine for us. During the day we walk around the town for a few hours, do some grocery shopping, cooking, and relaxing. and work keeps us busy during the evening hours. Slowly, the days are getting hotter and hotter here, and frighteningly enough, it's only the beginning of their spring. The bats here are as big as foxes (which is why they call them "flying foxes") and that's been a constant scare for me during evening hours. Around 5 o'clock every evening, the rainbow lorakeets come out (beautiful colourful birds that we mistakened for loud parrots at first) and I've been meaning to get some pictures of them. Anyways, I have a couple of photos to ... read more

Rockhampton to Mackay is approximately 6 hours of driving with little to see in between apart from gum trees and plantations of sugar cane but we pulled over for lunch and fortunately were lucky to hit a spot right on the coast to enjoy the view. We are attempting to use the Camp6 book we have purchased for free camping sites as much as possible but as they are not usually right in the middle of most towns we stayed in a camping ground in the centre of Mackay for the night and made use of the endless hot water to have a wonderful shower seeing as we were paying for it. Mackay seems a lovely place and has a 19km bike trail passing through all the highlights such as the botanical gardens, marina, environmental mangrove ... read more

After an incredibly long, 18 hour bus trip, we are finally settled in Mackay. We arrived shortly after 7 this morning, picked up by our Filipino friends Lilibeth & Jerry, who definitely did not have to wake up early especially for us. They showed us our room, and we had a quick, four hour nap. I didn't even feel my head hit the pillow, I was so exhausted. After we woke up, they drove us through town to the mall, where we found a few job openings that we are hopeful for. A short drive to the marina had us meet up with Jerry's boss, with whom we had a good chat with. Besides a couple hours of Karaoke with Jerry, there's nothing much else to report. But, I've finally a chance to upload photos, so ... read more

Happy Friday 13th!And happy birthday to Nici and Barbara xx We arrived in Mackay after a four hour drive from Capella and, despite Dean doing all the driving, I was completely shagged by the time we got there. That may possibly have been the longest drive on this trip so far! The scenery was lovely tough: we drove through the beautiful Peak Downs area, marveling at the hills and cotton fields. The surreal cloud formations only added to the mystique. After stocking up on food – we had munched well and truly into our reserves during those delays at Theresa Creek and Capella which, bizarrely, didn’t have any food shops – we went for a swim and found a picnic/BBQ area for dinner. As we were in a city again, I jumped at the chance ... read more

Sunday 11th December Had Tania and Ray over to the caravan for a BBQ and of course we had to have the biggest downfall of rain since we have been here. It rained non stop for a couple of hours and when it stopped the road in front of us was flooded (the 1 drain at the end of the road could not cope). We were sloshing around in it like a couple of kids - if it had kept on raining any longer I think we would have had the water running under the caravan and right through the annexe - as it was just the rain water was running through the annexe while we were having tea. To get in the Xmas spirit we put up our couple of strands of Xmas lights around ... read more