It's a Cane Toad!

28/06/2012
It’s a shame we have to leave Cape Hillsborough tomorrow as there is enough to see and do to warrant staying two more nights. The wildlife is good with lots of beautiful butterflies in the forest and kangaroos on the beach and in the park. At last the sun came out so we went for a hike over the headland and returned along the beach. You  can only do the beach when the tide is out, we got lucky as the headland walk is very steep and takes about an hour, the 40 min  walk along the beach was a doddle. There is another walk across a causeway to a small island, but that will have to wait for another day. Maybe on our way back up north?

29/06/2012
Leaving Cape Hillsborough we took the short detour out to Seaforth and found another lovely little bay with a van park on the beach. Definitely a place to come back to if ever we are passing this way again! As I said, the main reason for leaving was to go back to Mackay for re-supply, get internet and phone signal, so our first stop was in the manic town shopping centre. The place was heaving, it being school holidays and full of southern bloody nomads.
  Phoning different campsites within an hours drive of Mackay proved to be a no result, everywhere is full. We eventually got a spot in a tiny village on the Bruce Highway. The village is called Koumala and boast a general store and a pub which we will investigate tomorrow. The campsite is only 3 or 4 years old and very small, just about 15 places with brand new amenities. We will spend a couple of nights here then move to the outback to get lost and away from the crowds.

 30/06/2012
A doss about day seeing as there isn’t a lot to do in Koumala and a perfect day to do a bit of work on the tan.
 The first hour of the day we spent listening to Vanessa.
 We have a small purse we keep dollar coins in for the washing machine and it is a dried and cured cane toad. I showed it to Vanessa…………
“What’s that?”…….      “It’s a cane toad”……. “ What?”……. “a cane toad”. “Looks like some sort of crab, what is it?”……… “It’s a cane toad”. “John, come and look at this, what is it?”………..“It’s a cane toad”. “It’s nasty, what is it?”………”It’s a cane toad” “Yuck, put it away, it’s horrible.” What is it?”……….. “It’s a bloody cane toad”. This went on for some time and we were beginning to lose the will to live. We went to the pub!    

 01/07/2012
After yesterdays stimulating dialogue we just had to do something to exercise our brains further so we set about making plans to go bush for a while. Today was a good day to go shopping and stock up with stuff, everything being that much cheaper than in the outback. We could do to carry extra diesel as it can be up to 30 cents a litre more away from civilisation but we are short of storage space especially when there are several cases of Tooheys Extra Dry on board. We drove up to Mackay for the essentials then took the scenic route back rather than travel the horrid Bruce Highway. We went out to the beautiful Sarina Beach and watched a guy land  a very nice flathead, fishing off the beach. He offered it to us but unfortunately we hadn’t the means to deal with it or else or else it would have made a decent meal, and our fridge is full!.
 Sarina town is a sugar cane town, the whole of the surrounding area is sugar cane and comes into the town to be refined. We had a walk around the town to see where the very long sugar trains come into, they can be up to 2 K long.
  Walking about we discovered that Sarina was one of the places where the bloody cane toad  was introduced in 1935 and there is a big concrete one in the middle of town. What is it?      It’s a sodding cane toad!!