Gladstone

Sun 5 July… We lied about the internet. We bought $5’s worth for 1 hour which is quite expensive compared to some systems, the charges vary from place to place but should be free as most of the systems are useless. We managed to stay on line for about 20 mins before it packed up. It still wouldn’t work this morning but they did give us are money back.
We are now in Gladstone having dropped below the Tropic of Capricorn (it’s all down hill from here!) Gladstone is where we catch the ferry to Heron Island in a few weeks time so we have booked the vans into a secure compound in the port area for the time we are on the island. This a deep water harbour and so it is very busy with commercial craft, a lot of the coal is exported through this port, and there are huge container ships coming and going. Basically it is an ugly place, a bit like Avonmouth near Bristol, which you can see from the M5. We are staying a few K’s out of the city at Barney Beach which is a nice campsite on the beach. There are stunning views over the coal jetty and Rio Tinto’s aluminium smelter. The good news is-----we can hardly hear the railway, and they say they have WiFi.