A Long Day...

Hoping to cover a fair distance today, we left Home Hill at a few minutes after six this morning. On the map the road follows the coast quite closely for most of the way and road signs point to well known holiday destinations such as the Whitsunday Islands,  but in reality most of the scenery along the way consists of dry tropical savannah country, with only the occasional glimpse of the sea.  The Great Dividing Range could still be seen to our right, but more distantly as the road curved towards south east.  Once again we were held up repeatedly by roadworks, and several of the service stations we stopped at turned out to have pumps "out of order" or no fuel in stock, making it necessary to drive around to find an alternative.  This was frustrating for the driver, as you can imagine and made it a long, trying day for the children! 

There was one delay that caused a bit of excitement: when we had to wait for a cane train to cross the road.  It was travelling at walking pace- so slowly that the driver was able to jump down, run ahead to change the points and jump on again before it started to round the bend.  We didn't count how many trucks full of cut cane there were behind the little diesel engine, but the train was at leasy half a kilometre long!  The cane is harvested and loaded onto these trains, which then transport it to one of the many local sugar mills where it is crushed to extract the juice and processed to make raw sugar and molasses.  You can see the smokestacks of these mills scattered among the canefields. Apparently the fibre left after crushing is used to fuel the furnaces.

It has been said that queensland is twenty years behind in many things...

Sugar mill at Proserpine

At every petrol stop I would jump out and grab a snack from the caravan or buy coffee at the service station while Philip refuelled, and we would drive on, trying to make up for lost time.   At lunchtime we got to Clairview.  We had to leave the highway to get to the rest area there, but we all needed a proper break by then.  The children, especially, needed a chance to run around and stretch their legs!  It was a lovely picnic spot with free camping facilities, right on the beach! 

A mural on the wall of the camp kitchen.  The children were able to name all the animals depicted, and ssay exactly where they had seen one...  "Yes, we did see a bilby.  Remember the nocturnal house at Alice Springs?"

 

  

It was tempting to call it a day and camp there for the night, but that would have meant a long drive tomorrow, which we hoped to avoid.  So, after a sandwich, a cup of tea and a quick walk on the beach, we hit the road once more.  There are so many places it would be nice to stop and explore further.  Rockhampton, for example, looked very interesting.  The botanical gardens- seen only from the car as we drove past- were absolutely beautiful, and there are many lovely historical buildings in the main street.  As we plan to be home at the end of the month, however, we are started to be limited by time and need to choose which things we still want to do.

Finally, at 5:20 pm, we arrived at Caliope River, where we are camped for the night at another free camping spot.  We had already eaten on the way (buying a meal at McDonalds in Rockhampton had seemed like one way of keeping the kids happy for a while) so after a walk down to the river, with the promise that we could do it again in the morning, the children have been tucked into bed.

Tomorrow we hope to cover the two hundred-odd kilometers to Bundaberg, where the turtles come ashore at this time of year to lay their eggs.  We'd like to spend at least one full day there...