Day 15: Across the Burdekin to Townsville (16/06/12)

In the morning we woke refreshed, as usual. Perhaps this blog has not yet noted how well and satisfyingly we sleep at night, whatever the weather. Our caravan bed has got it right, as far as providing good sleep is concerned!

Sugar-cane cinders everywhere!

Hey, where have all the other caravans gone? Up late, as usual! :-)

At the northern end of Home Hill lies the Burdekin River which is extremely wide and relatively unfull at this time of year. One needs little imagination as to the size and power of the floods which have created such a wide river bed. Petrol at Ayr and on through a most pleasant cultivated landscape towards Townsville. We (read I) had chosen a central caravan park near the beach, rather than one of the many parks further out of town. The park turned out to be chockers, and our spot very small, right at the front of the park. Oh well, you can’t win them all!

Townsville is a very nice open city, from what we have seen of it. It is dominated by a big hill, Castle Rock, which is higher than the Albany hills and has the 360-degree lookouts that such hills require. 

Townville harbour and CBD from Castle Rock

Marina on the Ross River in the centre of town

Parachutist landing on the beach

Castle Hill lookout overlooking Cleveland Bay

Communications installation, Castle Hill

Joke looking over south-western part of Townsville

Old cemetery below Castle Rock, Townsville

Castle Rock car park

Lookout and suburbs

We enjoyed our wandering around until dusk, after watching the sun go down from the breakwater near the harbour. 

Would there be a good sunset tonight? Breakwater, Townsville.

On the breakwater

Sun adding interest as it goes down

Meanwhile, dolphins frolic in the harbour

And a familiar boat chugs past on its way to Magnetic Island. The Goondooloo, formerly of the Tamar River, Tasmania. I remember a trip to Beauty Point on it in the fifties!

The sun lays out its glory

And the clouds reflect it

Until the whole sky is painted with complex patterns

Then pizza and another day done.

Day 14: Mackay to Home Hill (15/06/12)

¿Que? I hear you say, where is Home Hill? Patience, dear reader, and all will be revealed. 

Do we really have to go on? You're kidding me!

Roof down, chairs stowed away, cupboards closed, rrrready to go!

But wait, before we go, wasn't this caravan park on a beach?

And another opportunity to tempt the saurians

Sand and palms and a wall to keep the big waves out.

Putting the message across

Caravan Park, Mackay

Yes, that's us, enjoying the winter sunshine....

We left Mackay with the intention of making it most of the way to Townsville so that a short Saturday drive would get us there for the weekend. So off we went, choosing Bowen as our lunch spot. We were now well into the region of the Whitsundays and the signage along the road gave copious evidence of that. There were other, more disturbing signs, too. Those nefarious Queenslanders had usurped some Tasmanian icons. Just north of Mackay, we found Mount Ossa and Mount Pelion, the latter a measly 380 metres high and the former even less. Could it be that Queenslanders are so afraid of Tasmania’s bracing weather that they import the names of Tasmania’s great mountains and put them on a couple of their own second-rate hills?

Shaking our heads we drove on to Bowen. (Well, we didn’t shake our heads all the way to Bowen, as a) that would have looked very silly and b) Bowen was still more than 100 kms away and we would have gotten sore necks). Perplexion did not leave us, however, because we were looking forward to a short stop in Proserpine, only to find that we must have passed it unnoticed! Not worrying too much and with heads unshooked, we sailed into Bowen. This turned out to be a most pretty little town with ultra-roomy streets – even the side streets would have been useful as main street in a reasonable country town. I could glide around in circles with the caravan in tow and never even get close to the kerbs! We drove to the Esplanade and had lunch on the grass. What stood out in Bowen was the extraordinary clarity and colour of the light.

Our lunch spot in Bowen

The Bowen Jetty

Port Denison Sailing Club, Bowen

Having consulted the information on Bowen, we found that it had hosted the filming of Baz Luhrman’s Australia. So we rubbernecked around: Oh look, there’s the hotel! And we have never even seen the film....

A sunken boat?

Dirk on Queens Beach, Bowen

Okay, they serve as flood protection, but why would you have concrete wagon wheels in the first place?

Monster sandbags

Joke's first bits of coral

Mistress of all she surveys...

Finally we set course for Home Hill. It had been recommended as a free camp spot by people we had met at St Lawrence. It is basically a suburb of Ayr on the southern side of the Burdekin River. It boasts a small shopping precinct and behind it a railway station, with its own road running about half a kilometre alongside the tracks. When we got there, fairly lateish in the afternoon, we were relegated to the far end, as the place was full of caravans and campervans. The Home Hill people had built a communal amenities block with showers and toilets. What they got out of it was people stopping for a meal, petrol, a trip to the supermarket and the like. Only two small, but interesting in their own way, negatives. Every couple of hours, someone in the surrounding farm area would set fire to a cane sugar field. One of them, at night, was upwind from us and the caravan was covered with stringy bits of ash in the morning. The other negative was that we were parked about 10 metres from the railway line. In the late afternoon that was kind of interesting, but the 1 am, 3 am and 5 am trains, well they weren’t wearing rubber wheels, and the drivers had all had new horns for Christmas.....

Along the line at Home Hill

Home Hill free camping area

Burning sugar cane - interesting when it is not upwind!

Day 13: St Lawrence to Mackay (14/06/12)

The morning at St Lawrence kept the spell of the previous evening: it was quiet, bright, a bit nippy but very relaxing. 

Bright and nippy breakfast

Some of the locals just waking up and scratching themselves

We were still using the winter doona, and were not regretting it in the least. After a leisurely breakfast, we went into St Lawrence town and tanked petrol

Yes, this is where we tanked petrol and bought milk!

(yes, we are learning) and drove back to the main road. We were among the last of those who were leaving, and on the 6 km side road we passed at least 6 RV-ers who were heading towards the camp site. No doubt that night there would have been as many if not more caravan and campervans as on the night we were there.  Later we heard that there were supposed to be a group of 60 campervans headed for St Lawrence around the time we were there.

Today’s journey was to Mackay along what was largely flat land with occasional sugar plantations. At Mackay we were headed for the northern fringe, to a caravan park in Black Beach. This turned out to be a very clean and well-appointed park, although the sites were a bit squeezy. We unhitched so that we could go into town and buy Joke a Telstra dongle to give us a little more flexibility with the internet. We wandered around town, the centre of which seemed to be a bit in decline. 

Boulevard and bridge along the Pioneer River

Street in Mackay

Achtung! Das billenbiters vill haf you for lunch!

Joke daring the crocs to come out and fight!

At the end of the pier: this is where TomTom took us instead of to a seafood restaurant.

Mackay Harbour

Dragon boaters(?) going out for an evening cruise.

We were directed to the “Canelands Shopping Centre” to find that, not only did it have Telstra shops, but it had all the other good shops too. It may have been my imagination, but Mackay looked like a town that was getting used to having an influx of mining people and their new wealth.

At the caravan park we spoke with a lady from Longford, who had gone to school with Jenine Barnes (ex-Tourism) and knew Tanya Hanson (my ex-boss). She said that there were a lot of people working in the mines at Moranbah (230 kms away) who lived in the park. Some of them did 12-hour shifts, and were bussed or drove themselves the 3-hour trip either way to Mackay. Madness, I say!

Day 12: Dead lights in Rockhampton to twilight at St Lawrence

First order of the day was to get the electrics fixed in the caravan. I rang the RACT, was connected to the RACQ instead who took my details and said I would have to speak to the RACT first. But, but.... Anyhow they transferred me to the RACT who said I would need to speak to the RACQ. But, but.... They relented and said I would have to speak to RACT Ultimate section. RACT Ultimate was more helpful, but said I would need to get RACQ to send out the local man. By this time I had given name, rank and serial number to all and sundry. The local man turned up and was about to back off when he understood the problem to be inside the van. However good nature prevailed and he had a look and, luckily, a sniff. Turned out the board in the front boot fluorescent light had cooked and the smell was quite strong. This was the “smell of gas” that had worried Joke the previous evening.

Armed with the RACQ diagnosis we teed up an appointment with an auto electrical firm for early afternoon. The caravan park was happy to let us stay there until then, so we had a relaxed morning in the sun.

Relaxation happening at Rockhampton

Discovery Caravan Park, Rockhampton

All the other overnighters had gone...

Then off we went to the auto electrical place and half an hour later all was fixed and we were on the road north.

Between Rockhampton and St Lawrence

Fruit stall plus second-hand stuff!

We had decided to stop over at St Lawrence, halfway between Rockhampton and Mackay. It is a free camp site maintained by the locals with $1 showers, and I read about it in Brisbane either in the papers or online somewhere – highly recommended. Well, they were not exaggerating. We are here with about 40-50 other vans on what seems to be a cattle stockyard. Tons of room for everybody, friendly neighbours, clean toilets and now that it is 9 pm, no generators!! J Joke and I looked at the stars for a while, and the longer you look, the more you see.

At St Lawrence in the evening

Part of St Lawrence free camp

More of St Lawrence free camp

Still more of St Lawrence - with us

Joke chatting with the neighbour

Evening comes swiftly - Joke cooking