Road to Cairns, day 1 Apr - 2

Rain most of the night again but, whatever! The morning was dry so we managed to have breaky and pack up without any difficulty. I programmed Rockhampton into the GPS. That would mean we would put on over 550 km on the first day. Such naive optimism deserves some sort of reward. We headed out around 8:30. Unfortunately, our lovely GPS girl decided that we needed to see downtown Brisbane one more time before we left. She guided us onto the M3 insead of the M1 and, before we knew it, we were headed into the heart of the city during rush hour. Fortunately, the traffic flow was really good and we were through the heart of the downtown and out the otherside with no more than 30 minutes wasted. Unfortunately, we also had to stop for gas, which meant gorceries as well, and a stop for coffee. Gee we might as well get some boxes and packing tape as well. All in all we did not get away from Brissie till 10:30!

I should mention that there was a time change as we exited New South Wales and drove north into Queensland yesterday. Only the Aussies would see fit to change time zones as you move south to north! What is that about? Now it gets dark around 6:45 instead of the 7:45 we were used to. It will however make getting up in the morning and on the road all that much easier.

Once out of Brissie we did manage to make up some time. We reset our goal to a campsite just west of Gladstone! called Calliope, and 120 km shy of Rockhampton, not bad. Our Camper 8 book gave us the campsite and the GPS coordinates that got us there 1 hour before dark. We set up and had supper under a clearing sky. The is a nice gentleman named Bill right next to us with his dog Shadow. We visited with him and got some pointers for the road north. Like the Shire of Bowen, north of MacKay, does not support caravan folks and, has hired contractors to patrol potential sites and kick out the free campers! We will have to look for a site just before Bowen tomorrow night.

 

Barramundi

I strolled down to the bridge after dark. There a a few of the local kids fishing. The channel under the bridge has a tidal flow and they are catching barramundi. The fish pictured here is about 3 feet long!

The evening was one of the most pleasant in the last several weeks. We are getting into the warmth now and the sky was wonderfully clear. We enjoyed star gazing well into the night!

 

P.s. Oh yah, it rained, and rained, and rained, all the day long!!!

 

 

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