Mackay to Airlie Beach

22/10/2012
  A bit more about Mackay. There is a piece in the local paper about the way the city is growing on the back of mining and resources. There are 12 housing developments going on, and they are all enormous, 2 industrial complexes under construction and 3 commercial centres. The whole thing is costing $94 billion. Best we start digging up the coal we have laying underground in the UK.
 After the hustle and bustle of Mackay, it’s very quiet here at Cape Hillsborough, we have practically got the place to ourselves. Just us the sand flies and the mossies! There are lots of brush turkeys mooching around and several kangaroos that are eating what grass is left between the caravan sites. The locals are desperate for rain as everything is dying, but we have only just moved into the wet season and last year it didn’t rain good rain until February.
 The humidity is increasing all the time and we have now taken to sleeping with the van door wide open at night with the (home made) mossie net in place. Mind you the pesky things have usually had a go at us long before bedtime, and we are full of lumps and itchy bumps right now because we forget to spray up early enough.

 23/10/2012
  It’s the navigators birthday so we started the day with a fry up just to keep the cholesterol level ticking over then went for a hike to  work it off. Our fitness has gone down hill in the last few months and we have both put on weight, time to do something about it.
  There are some good walks around the headland of Cape Hillsborough, mainly all involving steep climbs up rough tracks. Out came the walking shoes and we set about a 2 ½ hour trek up into the hills. At the top of the climb there are a couple of good vantage points with nice views along the coast and across the bay toward Mackay where they have TV, radio, phones and everything! We got to the top at the right time as the wind then got up threatening to bring a storm that we could see lurking out at  sea. As it happened we didn’t get a storm but the wind has blown a hooley all day, covering everything in sand and grit forcing us indoors to drink fink pizz ‘cos it’s her birthday.

 24/10/2012
  We have long had this theory about where caravan parks are positioned throughout Australia. We reckon that whenever the idea to build a park comes  up, first you need to find a railway line or a major highway then build your van park right next to it. If you can sandwich it between the two, so much the better, double the noise. Where we are right now they went one better , as we are  about 100m away from Airlie Beach Airport runway. Granted it’s not Heathrow, but light aircraft and helicopters make quite a racket and of course the highway runs to the airport so we get the best of both nuisances. Apart from that it’s a very nice van park only 4K’s from Airlie Beach which also appears to be very nice.
  This is the gateway to the beautiful Whit Sunday Islands, a favourite with the sailing mob. There are lots of boat trips out to the islands where you can swim and snorkel, we will investigate tomorrow and probably stay here a couple of nights.
 We enjoyed our stay at cape Hillsborough but we won’t miss the sand flies, the little buggers have got us both scratching like a couple of demented dingos and we have had to invest in industrial strength itch relief ointment
 Now we are back in civilisation we have internet again but the useless Vodaphone is still out of range. Every time I see an advert for Vodaphone I want to throw a rock at it. Vodaphone is without doubt the most useless piece of technology in the whole of Australia!

 25/10/2012
  Because Airlie Beach is the gateway to the Whit Sundays, it attracts many backpackers who  have a hit list of “must do” things whilst in Australia. The list is roughly, sky dive, scuba on the reef, white water rafting  and a trip around the islands. So, Airlie Beach is full of youngsters (some of them a bit feral) here to have a good time. They say the night life is very good here but how would we know when we are tucked up in our little cubbie with a book and a nice glass of something after dark.
 We had a look around Airlie but unfortunately the town is having major roadworks with detours and lots of safety barriers which spoil the look of the place. We imagine it is a nice little town when it is not being dug up, with a seafront swimming lagoon similar to the one in Cairns. We spent most of the day by the lagoon topping up the tan and swimming to cool off.
 A nice trip out on a yacht to the islands would be nice but it’s not cheap, over $175 each for a day out, and we know we will have a monumental bill to pay when I have seen the ear-ole specialist next Monday. Maybe we can do a trip out to the reef later when we are in Cairns.

 26/10/2012
  Two night didn’t seem quite enough so we are staying for one more night and heading up to Townsville tomorrow. Not far from our little runway by the sea is the very pretty port of Shute Harbour which runs a ferry service and trips out to the islands. We had a walk around and loved the place but again we were amazed by the cost of the ferry and day trips, suddenly the Dover Calais journey appears cheap.  Back at Airlie we joined the hundreds of backpackers around the lagoon, doing our best to increase the average age and were doing fine until another  load of youngsters turned up on the Greyhound bus from Brisbane or somewhere.  
 We are in a period of very hot dry weather and we hear on the news daily of bush fires out of control around the south and southwest of Queensland. We are well clear of them and intend to stay that way.