Back on the Road Again.

Are we happy? Yes we are!

Judy and I have packed the caravan and joined the happy throng of travellers on the highways of Australia. This time we are motoring to Geelong via The Coast Highway. It has been over 16 years since we have travelled the New South Wales coast south of Sydney. It is time for another look. Along the way we hope to catch up with many old friends and relatives that we have not seen for many months and even years.

Our home took on the appearance of a disaster area as we packed clothes, food and other "essentials". There were bags and boxes all over the floors ready to be loaded into the caravan when I collected it from the caravan storage on Monday morning. With not to many interruptions from the neighbours we were able to lock up the residence and leave Hervey Bay at precisely 12:08. Earlier than I had hoped.

There is a free camp behind The Matilda Roadhouse near Kybong Creek. Many of our friends have stayed over night there but we had not. This was the time to trial the venue. We arrived in less than two hours but already many travellers had set up camp, but there was still space for us. Rain had finally been falling around the South East corner of Queensland and the New South Wales Coast so the area of the camp was wet in areas but still accessible to us. Toilets and showers are available at the Roadhouse, only a short walk away. Even though we were less than two hours travel from Hervey Bay we noticed the over night temperature was considerably cooler. So much so that we pulled our warm blanket out of storage and remade the bed.

Tuesday morning we broke camp at a leisurely pace and joined the traffic at 9 AM. Travelling down the M1 through Brisbane and the Gold Coast we reached our destination of Stott's Island. This is located on the Old Pacific Highway just North of Murwillumbah. We had camped here previously and was looking forward to revisiting. Amazingly we parked in the very same location as our first visit. This time, however, the rain has been here also. Many wet areas reduced the available camping space but everyone squeezed in for the night.

Matilda Petroleum Roadhouse near Kybong Creek. As seem from the Bruce Highway.

Matilda Petroleum is named after this fibre glass kangaroo. Matilda, the kangaroo, was a feature of the Opening Ceromony of the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane. Matilda has now been refurbished and happily resides behind the Roadhouse. Matilda is quite clever, being able to flash her eyelids, flick her ears and rotate her head from side to side.

The view from the Picnic and Camp Area behind the Matilda Petroleum Roadhouse.

Tortoise reside in the pond system along with hundreds of water birds of many species.

The view of Stott's Island Reserve from the Old Pacific Highway.

We managed to secure the same parking position that we had on our previous visit. Some areas of the reserve were quite wet following the recent rains.

The Isa to Hervey Bay

Judy and I have had a wonderful four months travelling around The Far North of Queensland. We have seen much and learned much. We will return during another season, might be some grass and less dust then.

We pulled out of The Isa not too early on Saturday morning, actually it was just before lunch! We then had to be in Bundaberg to meet our Thursday morning appointment at Warburton Jayco to have some minor repairs completed on our caravan. By travelling about 200 km the first day and then about 400 km each of the following days we should be there safely and on time.

First stop was Fullarton River North RA (Camps 7/365) on the Landsborough Highway. Second stop-over was at Apex Riverside Park (Camps 7/347) at Longreach. Numerous camps already set up when we arrived and many more come in later. We had a local drop by and sell us a dozen fresh hen eggs for $2, great for breakfast next morning. So far it has been easy driving and this continued on the Capricorn Highway till we reached our next stop-over at Bogantungan RA (Camps 7/ 327). We and three other caravan travellers did a little cheating here. The actual RA is quite near the Highway, we drove into Bogantungan township and camped beside the Railway Station. Nobody told us to move and we had a peaceful night away from the trucks. The easy driving was soon to be over as we eventually reached and navigated over The Great Dividing Range. Turning onto the Bruce Highway near Rockhampton the tempo rose immediately. Dense traffic flows and some woefully slow caravan towers had drivers exasperated. I was thankful when we reach Calliope River RA until we drove in and found the area almost totally packed with caravans and motorhomes. We did manage to find an almost level area to stop. For the final leg of our cross State trek we had a reasonably short leg to Wallum Reserve (Camps 7/126) on the Isis Highway and just 28 km short of our Bundaberg destination. An early rise next morning and a short drive to reach our appointment at 8 AM. Following some rapid repairs on the caravan we were parked outside our front gate before lunch on Thursday.

The caravan is now cleaned and safely locked away in storage and that's all we have to report until our next caravanning adventure. We plan on being on the road again about mid November. I will look forward to compiling more Blog Posts as we are driving south along the NSW Coast.

Cardwell

We have never visited the town of Cardwell before. As we are taking a slow point to point journey northwards this year and because Cardwell was devastated by Cyclone Yasi a couple of years ago, we decided that this time we would stay in town and have a look around. We booked into The Beachcomber Caravan Park for one night and found that this was not long enough, we stayed a second night and met some people. Some locals and some holidaying. We are booking in for a third night as that is "State of Origin" night and the park is having a special TV night, of course we will be decked out in 'Maroon'. We plan on saying goodbye to Cardwell on Thursday morning and make our way to Tully a distance of only 43 km.

At the north end of town is the Memorial to The Naval Battle of The Coral Sea in May 1942.

We were on our Aldi Fold up Bikes and as we rode southwards along the beach towards town we could see how much restoration work had been completed to date. The sandy beach had been reinstated and the revegetation was taking hold.

Further south and we were almost in town now, the Cardwell Jetty is in sight with Hinchinbrook Island in the back ground.

We are now at the north end of town and the restoration work is still progressing. Not far from this point the Main Street (The Bruce Highway) is reduced to one lane. The town will look a picture when all the work is completed. Some people are saying another six months should see the town restoration completed.

South of the Jetty the beach is non existent and work is in full swing to completely restore what was blown away in Cyclone Yasi.

Large rocks are trucked in to provide a base, drainage is installed and then truck loads of sand are brought in and overlaid this foundation to complete the repair.

This section of The Bruce Highway is down to one lane only.

We could not access the beach south of The Jetty until this point but it all looked like this. The mangroves here on the foreshore are completely devastated. Beach restoration has commenced here. Port Hinchinbrook is just beyond the next point, visible in the background but we were unable to ride our bikes past this point. The Port area was completely devastated in the cyclone as well but we could not get there to see what work has been done in that area.

Cardwell was the first settlement in North Queensland and was the central point for Government. This is the original Post Office established in 1870. The Post Office has withstood every cyclone that has encroached since that time. Yasi did not even break a window pane in the building.

Ingham

Ingham is the main town in the region and is home to Victoria Mill the largest Sugar Mill in Queensland. Ingham is also the main service town for the satellite communities of Lucinda, Halifax, Taylors Beach and Allingham. Ingham has a population of about 11500 people and therefore has most of the services that the people living here require. Of course it is not too far to drive to the City of Townsville and all that it offers.

Ingham is a fairly basic country town but it does have a very large park splitting the north and southbound lanes of The Bruce Highway, that, of course, is routed through the centre of town.

Another view of the central park.

This, apparently, is the very Pub that Slim Dusty sang of in his well known hit song "The Pub With No Beer".

Adjacent to the Library, Art Gallery and the Tourist Information Office is the well presented Wetlands Park, known as The Tyto Wetlands Park Precinct.

Another view of the Tyto Wetlands Park including the elevated walkway that links The Tourist Information Office to The Library and Art Gallery Area.

As this is a major Sugar Processing Area it stands to reason that historical relics of the Sugar Industry would be included in this Precinct. This is an elevated view.

The same elements of the display from a different perspective.

This is a Sand Sculpture of The Tyto Capensis (The Eastern Grass Owl) that gives it's name to the Wetlands Area that it habitates.

Gin Gin Rest Area

Another of our frequent stop-overs. Gin Gin is really close to home and is a great point for the first or last lay-over on our travels. Access to the town is via an easy walk of about 2 km. We arrived here after enduring a vast amount of road works for yet another day and we expect the same again tomorrow after we pull out of here.

Close to where we usually park, down the back away from the Bruce Highway. As usual quite a few campers in here as well.

Calliope Rest Area

Here we are again, camped on the high level side of the Calliope River. Really, we should try the low level side on at least one pass through the area. We had encountered quite a lot of road-works after leaving Rockhampton and appreciated the chance to pull off the road and camp for the night.

We usually find a good position close to the river bank with a great view along both reaches of the river. Lots of action on the other side this time with several families camped there for the school holidays.

Needed some exercise after driving for a couple of hours, went for a walk across the old condemned bridge that was the Old Bruce Highway to the low side of the river.

Yeppoon

This time through Rockhampton we turned off the Bruce Highway and stopped over in Yeppoon. We have some Hash House Harrier friends there, Kennell and MD. Otherwise known as Ken and Cheryl. We stayed at The Beachside Caravan Park, on The Byfield Road, for two nights and as the name suggests, it is beachside, we had sea views and woke with the sun coming up over The Keppell Islands. 

We also had time to drive out to Byfield National Park and visit some of the sights there. We checked out Red Rock Camp Ground in the NP for possible caravan sites and found it suitable for the likes of our caravan. Red Rock Camp Ground is the only one in the Byfield NP suitable for caravans.

Yeppoon is expanding with new development happening at a great pace, but so far, has still retained it's "seaside charm".

Jude is studying the map of local sights while I am taking in the great vista that greats us from our awning.

Flaggy Rock

Homeward bound now, first stop over is Flaggy Rock. We are camped in behind the Community Centre there. The fee is only $5 per night and it is very quiet here. We are the only camp but in the busy season the 5 acres would be filled.

The rear of The Community Centre at Flaggy Rock. I suspect that this would have been a school building in years gone by.

There is 5 acres of grounds here and we are the only campers present along with the caretaker. Two large Mango Trees centre/left provide us with breakfast goodies.