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Published: April 17th 2009
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Day 75 Central Queensland
Today we left Stuart and Townsville to continue heading south so we can arrive in Brisbane next weekend. We travelled down the Bruce Highway for a few hundred kilometres until we reached Bowen, when we left we found out that this is where the Darwin set was built for the film Australia.
It was wet and stormy weather for most of the day but dried up for us to see the small tourist town of Airlie Beach. On any day except today Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday islands would look spectacular, however toady it was just another stop along the way.
12/4
Day 76
Easter Sunday so we had to keep up tradition by eating Easter eggs for breakfast! The sun was shining first thing so before leaving we headed back into town to see what it looks like when it is dry and sunny. The sea was tropical blue and the islands looked pretty showing in the distance. It is annoying that the sea looks so inviting yet it is full of lethal box jellyfish so you can't even paddle. The public lagoon by the sea was full of families and it
was only 9.30am, it was a shame to leave and not go for a swim but we had a fair way to travel today.
We stopped for a morning break in Mackay, quite a large town and then continued to drive on the long straight quiet road, lined with sugar cane fields. Rockhampton was to be our final stop for the night after completing 450km today. This town is well known as a cattle town and looks like a typical Australian town with wide streets and some traditional buildings. We spend the night at the Riverside Holiday Park which is next to the crocodile infested river, 12 metre crocodiles have been seen here!
13/4
Day 77
Another day on the road and yet again more rain. We thought it would be hot and sunny here, but we have seen a lot of torrential rain and you think it could be England until you get out of the camper and the hot humidity hits you.
The road hadn't changed much over the last few days, still fields of produce and then bushland, although there was a lot more traffic today as it was the end of the
bank holiday. We shared the driving and called off at a picnic area where the road agency provided free coffee to prevent fatigue accidents.
Our destination in the afternoon was Bundaberg about 350km from Rockhampton. We find a nice small well equipped holiday park (Apollo) and chill out in the afternoon as we waited for the rain to stop.
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Day 78 Bundaberg
As this is the home to the well known Australian rum “Bundaberg” we ensure that we visited the rum distillery before we left. It was a great interactive museum and an entertaining tour round the distillery, after the tour we also got two tastings each! The rum is made using the local sugar cane and the distillery produces under and over proof rum products as well as a lovely liquor and ready mixed products including the famous Bundy and coke. It is difficult to buy this rum in the UK as 80% is consumed by Australians and the rest is mainly exported to America, apparently Sainsburys sell it!
We drive south for a few hours until we reached Hervey Bay on the sunshine coast. The weather forecast was rubbish for the next few
days so we decided not to go to Fraser Island (largest sand bar in the world). We were mildly disappointed with the resort as it had lovely beaches but nothing much else and everything was closed by 6pm.
We did stay at a lovely holiday park called Australiana and had a drive to the harbour in the evening before settling down. It is a shame that it gets dark here so early (about 5.30pm), we don't arrive at our accommodation until late afternoon and then we have to cook before the mossies come out so it means we miss exploring where we are staying until the morning.
15/4
Day 79
We left Hervey Bay and tried to drive along the coast today and planned to stop at a place called Tin Can Bay for lunch. This little town was an hour or so scenic drive through a forest until we reached the small bay that was at the bottom tip of Fraser Island. We stopped here and had lunch but there was not much else to see or do so we continued on our way inland as there is no coast road here.
Unfortunately due
to all the rain over the last few days the road to Gympie which was our planned route was closed due to a bridge being flooded. Instead of a 40km journey back to the Bruce Highway we had to back track the way we had driven this morning and an hour and a half later we were travelling through Gympie.
The diversion meant that we didn't have time to go anywhere else today so we just headed straight to somewhere to stay near Australia Zoo, our destination for tomorrow.
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tony and rosemary
non-member comment
weather!
Should have stayed in the glorious west - it was really hot over easter!