Having arrived back at the campsite quite late last night, we arose later than usual and had a very leisurely breakfast, the campsite owners not being too fussed about us leaving later than the scheduled 10 am. We decided to head for the Capricorn Coast today and set off back towards Bundaberg to link up once more with the Bruce Highway.
Travelling on Australian roads has in the most part been a real pleasure. They are not generally crowded, surfaces are quite good unless there has been some recent flood damage and traffic apart from the larger cities, has been very light. Today we continued to pass through sugar cane fields for some distance beyond Bundy, as the locals refer to it, but eventually the narrow guage rail tracks came to an end and so did the sugar cane. We travelled on through a mostly volcanic landscape. Many times we spotted a range of hills almost surrounding us on a fertile plain, clearly we were travelling in a caldera. The vegetation was dense with a wide range of trees and bushes we had seen elsewhere in Australia but there were also more tropical plants, especially palms in evidence and even a coconut tree or two.
Along the road we noted a number of imaginative mailboxes created from redundant household and farming items. We had grown accustomed to milk churns, oil drums and cans of all sizes and kinds, then we spotted the first one made from a microwave cooker! Several more were spotted during our journey today and we wondered whether anyone had produced a poster of 'Unusual mailboxes of Oz' as some enterprising person had produced one of doors in Malta and door knockers in Mallorca?
We took a break at a very pretty bay with views out to a series of islands at 1770, named apparently in honour of Captain James Cook whose second landfall in Australia was on or near this spot. The sand bars and shoals must have made anchoring and landing very difficult and the mangrove type vegetation that backs the bay with forbidding mountains and forests beyond ought to have been very off putting but apparently the British were not deterred!
Near Bororen a road sign advised us, 'Not to sleep and drive!' which we found vaguely amusing, but then further into our journey it also suggested that Trivia is useful for keeping one awake and there followed just one question about the floral emblem of Queensland, which of course we all know is the Cooktown Orchid. Well we know that now because further on the answer was given!
During the course of our journey today we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn. I recall as a schoolboy in the early 1960s being given a blank world map and asked to draw straight lines indicating the location of the Equator and both the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. There was no sign on the road to advise us of this momentus occasion but it is worth noting here as I suspect we will not drive over it again in the very near future.
Between Gladstone and Rockhampton the road ran alongside rail tracks and we were astounded at the size of some of the trains that passed us. Never before have we seen two double headed locomotive trains joined together pulling approximately 100 ore trucks but further into the same journey we encountered one train with double locomotives at each end and a further two in the middle. Like the fabled road trains, these are huge by any standard and we were In awe.
Late afternoon saw us arriving at Bell Park Caravan Park in the small town of Emu Park, previously named by Aboriginals as the place of emus. We were told to pitch anywhere and pay the following morning. We spent a little while deciding on the best place to be with regard to position of sun in morning, connected electric and turned on gas and immediately set to work with the bbq. During the cooking a large number of black creatures about the size of small crows wheeled about above the beach and our van. We believe them to be some kind of bat but have never seen any of that size before. Anyone know for sure what they were, sorry no photos taken?
The food was tasty but the evening and subsequent night were somewhat spoilt by an infestation of mosquitos. When the door to the van was closed and lights turned on they swarmed everywhere! I still shudder to think of it now. We had no bug spray to hand so resorted to a rolled up guide book and damp flat spare sponge. We spent ages trying to clear the van but we knew there were some lurking and the fan on the air conditioner did not seem to deter them too much either. We had a very restless night because it was hot, it felt as if we were being landed on and nibbled by unseen flying predators, even if we were not. Both of us think we had a few more mossie bites on us when we awoke than when we went to sleep but can not be sure. A suitable bug spray is on the shopping list for tomorrow!
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