Dirk and Joke doing the Half-lap: Day 10: Exit North

Monday had arrived, time to pack up again and move north towards Cairns. More instructions from Hans were followed and we managed to avoid the toll tunnel and toll bridge and sail right along the riverfront past the Brisbane CBD, without encountering too many stop-starts at traffic lights along the way.

Dirk sailing through Brisbane

In our favour was the fact that it was the Diamond Jubilee holiday in honour of Mrs Windsor, so traffic was light. Soon enough we were on the highway to Gympie, motoring along with a nice steady tailwind. At the Glasshouse Mountains we took a scenic side tour which was very nice. We also saw our first pineapple plantations there.

Morning tea among the Glasshouse Mountains

Mount Tibrogargan and, incidentally, the first pineapples we have seen

At Maroochydore we took a second but much less successful side trip and wasted much time without seeing much of interest. Finally we got to Gympie where we went around the block a bit to get to a petrol station.

From there it was only a small distance to Gin Gin. Just north of the town was a free camping spot where we were going to try our hand at free camping. We had finally gotten into warmer country, we had everything we needed on board, and it was time to cut the umbilical cord to caravan parks. Well, it was the best initiation into free camping we could have gotten. The area was huge – a couple of football fields at least, and there were at least 30 vans there when we arrived in the late afternoon. With so much space we found ourselves a nice spot not too close to anybody else, on a lawn-like meadow, under shady but not limb-dropping trees. The sunset was marvellous and the temperatures were such that we could sit outside, glass of wine in hand, and watch the gathering darkness roll on.