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Published: March 20th 2014
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It was tough but it was time to leave the Sunshine Coast as our holidays were drawing to a close and we had to head on back to the Northern Territory, where hopefully we would be in for a busy Dry Season so at 1000 we fired up the car and were northward bound.
A decision had not been made as to our route home until about an hour before our departure. It is nice sometimes to not be too regimented and go with the flow however some careful considerations needed to be taken. I like to watch the weather when travelling fairly closely because particularly in the Tropics at this time of year many factors can influence your journey. Cyclones can still form at this time of year and in fact they are expecting one to develop possibly on Saturday in the Bowen region, this is exactly where we are hoping to head. Northern Queensland and the Top End in the Territory had been receiving a lot of rain this wet season and even some parts of Central and Western Queensland that had not seen rain for a number of years were experiencing some very good rainfalls. Now everyone
knows with monsoonal or cyclonic rain flooding occurs rapidly leading to road closures and if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time you can basically end up – Stranded! That was not on our agenda.
So with a potential cyclone forming up North it seemed the obvious choice would be to ..…. head North. They had received heaps of rain and were in a nice spell of dry weather and besides we had never driven to these parts before so away we went. And what a great drive it was.
Plenty of roadwork continuing in Queensland which equates to delays but it is a small price to pay, safer roads are better roads. An interesting road safety campaign that makes its first appearance about half an hour north of Gympie on the Bruce Highway works on the strategy of keeping the mind active to help avoid fatigue. The road signs ask a couple of trivia questions and commences with “Fatigue Zone – trivia games help you stay alert”. Question one was “Rockhampton is famous for”? So you have some time to think about it and decide on your answer and maybe
3 or 4 k’s down the road the answer is displayed on the next sign. The correct answer would be – beef cattle, however someone thought they would alter the sign to read – “beer cattle”. For me that worked better because if you laugh at least for that period of time you will not feel fatigued. If you look at my photos some of the question is missing because you pass these signs at 110kph and on bumpy roads, not the easiest conditions for quality shots. If I’d been inclined to do such things I would have added a comma so that it read - Beer, Cattle but I’ll just enjoy other people’s sense of humour in these matters.
At Rockhampton we decided to call it a day and stopped the night at the Southside Holiday Village they were very welcoming and helpful, we were cooking snags for dinner and were kindly directed to a fish & chip shop a couple of k’s down the road and bought some tasty chips and calamari to accompany the sausages.
Not sure of tomorrows plan yet because it will be necessary to check the weather forecast, if it looks risky
to head further north we are able to head west from here and make our way back through Emerald. We’ll see what the morning brings.
Take care travel safe and remember it’s nice to be important but it’s important to be nice.
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