Slowly moving north

 17/10/2012
  Our caravan park beach is not that nice, lots of debris and what looks like oil everywhere, it’s not somewhere we would want to swim.  A short walk into Emu Park village and over the headland is another beach which is different again, very clean and tidy and sheltered by the headland. We didn’t spend any time there as today has been very hot again so we lazed about saving ourselves for Happy Hour held in the camper kitchen. It’s not really Hi de Hi, just a few old soaks having a beer and passing on travel info, very Australian.

 18/10/2012
  We had a bit of a plan for today but of course it all went pear shaped. Instead of driving our usual 200-250K’s per day we have travelled 400 and have landed nowhere near where we should be. The Bruce Highway which is a continuation of the Pacific Highway is equally as busy and plagued by road works, but there is an alternative. The old Bruce Highway cuts inland and over the Alps (that’s what it says on the map) a much more scenic drive, but longer. The map says there is a caravan park at about  250K’s beautifully named the Lotus Creek Tourist Centre, just right for a days drive. ……. It’s a builders yard! It’s actually a Servo with a yard behind which was full of rubble and rubbish. Only one power point worked and that lay flat on the ground looking decidedly dodgy. There were no guests and we gave it a miss.
 So we have moved a lot further north in one go than we intended and are back on the Bruce Highway at Sarina. At least being in a town on the highway we have communications, even our Vodaphone mobile works here.

 19/10/2012
  After yesterdays marathon drive, today we bunny hopped up the Bruce Highway to Mackay, a town that seems to get bigger every time we visit it.  Sarina to Mackay is only about 45K’s but getting through the city centre to our caravan park was a nightmare. Roadworks with detours which sent us round in circles made things in the cab a little tetchy. We didn’t really want to stay here but we need our phone to work and we know once we leave the Bruce Highway we lose all signals
 We needed the phone to work so we could arrange for me to get an appointment with an audiologist as my hearing has suddenly got worse after an ear infection. So, we now have a date with an ear wizard in a weeks time in Townsville, 400K up the road. That means we have a week to kill. A couple of nights here in this very busy city then we are booked into a nice sea side park further up the coast and nearer to Townsville, but, of course, there will be no communications as it’s all of an hour away from civilisation!

  20/10/2012
  Mackay is not one of our favourite places, probably because it’s too busy for it’s own good. The city has jumped on the mining boom and seems to be the hub  for people who work in the mining or construction industries.  What’s more the place is growing at an amazing rate as we saw when we drove out for a look at the northern beaches. Everywhere we looked we could see the infrastructure going in for enormous housing estates, this really is a very wealthy country.  Many of the houses have not been built yet but the  shopping centres are already in place, up and running.
  Mackay city centre is  having a major refurbishment and should be much improved in a few years time , just so long as they don’t destroy some of the older buildings.
We are leaving tomorrow and probably won’t ever come back but I would love to see what the place will look like in 5 years time.

 21/10/2012
 Once more we find ourselves without communications and only 25K from the main highway and only 42K’s from the city of Mackay. In fact we can bloody well see Mackay from the headland here! It’s on the other side of the bay, no more than 20K as the crow flies.
  We are here at Cape Hillsborough for a few days and can manage without phone or internet (no bugger writes to us anyway) but we do like to know what’s going on in the world. Anyway, rant over, we chose to come here because we have been before and it is such a beautiful place.
  The whole area is a national park with some good walks and a lovely beach which we have tried out already. Officially it is stinger season, October to May, and the advice is to swim inside the stinger nets, but there isn’t one here so we will take a chance. The Irukjandi stinger and the Box jelly fish frequent warm calm water and although the sea is warming we don’t believe it’s warm enough yet. Hope we don’t get stung ‘cos we can’t ring for a bloody ambulance!