More at Mackay

Fri 3 July… We have come to the conclusion that this is one of the worst campsites we have ever stayed on, if not the worst. Some of the camps in the outback are a bit rough which is to be expected being so far away from civilisation. This place is in the middle of a major town on the very touristy east coast, and it is rank. The swimming pool is closed for repair, the toilets are disgusting and archaic and half of the gents is out of order, the internet is broken and we watched the cleaning woman spray herself with mossie repellent before going into the gents loo, it then took her just 2 mins to do the cleaning. The showers this morning didn’t need us to even turn on the cold tap, it varied between cold and tepid and you had to run around to get wet! The permanent residents seem to be just one step away from being homeless we can’t wait to get out. Needless to say we were up and about early and spent all day visiting local places of interest. Mackay is a working town, sugar and coal being it’s main business but it does have some charm. It also has 31 beaches dotted around. We killed some time this morning having overdue haircuts, a coffee and a walk round the town centre. It has quite a lot of art deco buildings which are moderately interesting. We called into the Tourist info office, situated in the town hall and the staff there said that they never send anybody to our camp! They also said they could do us a deal on a short stay on Heron Island which was a real bummer as we only paid the full bill for the Heron Island trip 2 days ago.
We then went to a small peninsula called Slade Point which has a whale watching platform. They are due to pass here starting in 2 to 3 weeks time, on their way north. We got chatting to a nice lady who originates from Cheltenham, living here now, not only that but she is also a Gloucester RUF supporter and was wearing a Gloucester shirt to prove it. She had also lived in Nigeria some time ago, same time as the Navigator, and not too far away either. Small World. She gave us some useful advice on things to see which we took on board for the return journey. One was a place where we could possibly see platypussieseses! ( platypii??) later we visited a couple of beaches and took a walk along a boardwalk through a swamp. There was not a great deal to see, but we know a lot more about trees that grow in swamps than before.