Road Trains

Up travelling on the road to the Lynd Junction we came accross numerous road trains ,quite intimidating when you have 135 Tones coming at you at 100km plus on a single lane piece of Tar seal. the answer is you give way and quickly.

The trick is to do your braking before you get off on to the gravel or you may slide off the road before you stop.

Also you should read this before you go.

http://caravanersforum.com/download/file.php?id=79

Gold Coast

Well we made it back to the Gold Coast Saftley or be it Just after this mornings episode were I found my self driving firstly over the bridge in the centre of Brisbane city in the Bus Lane ,are well it was to late to back up with a caravan on and a bus following although the sign (Fines apply) certainly made me think about it ,so just recovering from that I found myself two minutes later driving up the two lane off ramp the wrong way with two lanes of traffic aproaching.
Doh!!.
Are well after a minute or two of thought it was into reverse and back 100 meters or so to a spot that offered u turn possibilities ,my apologies to the two lanes of Brisbane traffic who stopped to let this mad Kiwi recover from his mistake. Then after a bit more driving around in circles it was finally on to the Gold Coast Highway and the Blood pressure returning to normal.
Well we have two weeks on the Gold Coast then its back to Kiwi land for a month then we will resume our adventure terrorising NSW motorists.That is if the Austalian Authorities will let us in for a second time.
Have add some pictures of one of our crusier days up north out on the great Barrier reef at Michaelmas Kay
cheers Mike and Cushla

Tin Can Bay

Well we had a lovely stay in Townsville. It really is a neat place which has lots of contradictions within it. The main street has been closed to traffic and has a stage built in the middle of it - so I figure it would be a fantastic place to be when there is some good live entertainment happening. They have some new high rise buildings in the centre of town but are now starting to restore the old original building at one end of the main street which are really neat and will look fantastic once they are all back in good shape.

It has a great marina - not any beaches as such that we saw - more estruary's - but hey I'm sure the locals know where the good beaches are - mind you - still have the worry of stingers and croc's. In the City centre there are these huge rock hills/mountains/bluffs - not sure what you'd call them but all the houses etc seem to be built on this ruggard looking rock - really cool - not flat like most other locations around it.

We were then heading to Airlie Beach (gateway to Whitsunday). Drove in and had a look around but decided not to stay as the camp fee's were crazy $50.00 per night for a power site when normally we are paying about $30.00. It looks like it would really pump with the crowds - and once again some super shopping! We carried on and stayed at Prosperpine which is an inland town built mainly to service the sugar cane factory and rural farmers. We went for a walk in the evening and all the smoke and steam that the sugar cane factory pumps out makes a fine mist that sits over the whole town - wouldn't like to live there permanently as it didn't feel healthy - the house roofs etc had a black layer over them from the smog! but hey the town folk were super friendly and we had a good night there. One thing that was really different was: I walked over to the ablution block at about 6.00pm and there was this older chap walking out with a torch - he said to me I'm looking out for the snakes and I just laughed not knowing what he was on about - then later both Mike and I went back over to the loo's and when I came out Mike pointed out a sign in the laundry that said " Due to wet and dry conditions there had been a number of snakes sighted in the camp and that we were not to approach them (Yeh Right!!) and to notify the management. Honestly that put a whole new fear factor into going to the toilet during the night! Scary stuff!! Needless to say we didn't see one - thank goodness.

Did a big haul from Prosperpine to Yappoon (east of Rockhampton) stayed a couple of nights there - what a lovely spot - it has real sand on it similar to the beaches back home - white and course - not soft and squeaky! This is one of those lovely holiday area's that you can just see is ready to take off - if there was an international flight into Rockhampton - it would boom overnight. Would be well worth investing in if you wanted a nice holiday home.

Our next big haul was today - we drove from Yappoon to Tin Can Bay (just east of Gympie = 6 hours). I understand it got the name Tin Can Bay from manufacturing HOLDENS here (sorry just couldn't resist - stirring you Holden/GM lovers). Cool little place will have a good look around tomorrow as it was 4.00pm before we got here today. In the morning we can go down and buy some food to feed the dolphins off the rocks - how cool is that!

Well that has bought you all back up to date with what we are up to and where we are. We will move down to Colundra on Tuesday then spend Wednesday and Thursday night in Brisbane before hitting the Gold Coast on Friday

Townsville

It has been a while since our last contact but we have been in some very remote areas and e-mail connections are an unheard of thing!

Last Friday we went out on the Great Barrier Reef and did some snorkling - great fun!! The trip out to the outer reef was just over two hours and a wee bit rough but the trip back in was worse - extremely choppy - and some very green looking people on the boat - I'm proud to say Mike and I held our own. We were snorkling around and watching a turtle swimming when a grey shark cruised past very deeply under us - didn't appear at all interested in us thank goodness. It was a full day and I recommend it to anyone heading over this way.

Saturday morning we headed up to Port Douglas - neat place - very set up for the tourist but some fantastic shopping etc. We then carried on up to Mossman to catch up with Judie and Joe Sciacca (they were host parents to Amy on her exchange at high school). It was great to catch up with them and Joe gave us a fantastic tour of the sugar farm they have and burnt off some of the waste cane in the fields while we were there. There is a lot more to growing sugar cane than I ever thought there was - really interesting.

We spent a day tiki touring up there and went up to Cape Tribulation - right up to the beach at the end. The thing that amazed me the most was there a huge signs warning of crocodiles on the beach and when we walked onto it there were kids playing in the water and people sunbathing on it - I sure didn't feel to comfortable on the beach but the scenery if beautiful with the rain forests all the way up there and the beautiful beach with white sand and super blue water at the end of it.

We then went and had a look at the Daintree village which is really cute - would be a very kicked back lifestyle to live there I'm sure. We then went for a ride out to the Mossman Gorge which is a dead end (unlike the Waioweka Gorge) but is really fantastic with crystal clear water and huge rocks in it. Joe was saying there are a few fatalities in it as when the we season comes people don't heed the warnings and swim in it with all the rocks etc they get caught up and that's it - but on the day we were there it was great - there were alot of people swimming in there - must have been all kiwi's as it would have been to cold for the locals.

On Monday we shot off to Mareeba and stopped at the Coffee Works there - they grow there own coffee and process it on site so you are guaranteed a very fresh cup of coffee - shame I don't drink it but Mike was pretty happy with his. We went on down the track threw Herbertson, Ravenshoe (Queenlands highest Town), Mount Garnet then stayed the night in a motor camp attached to a BP Service Station at The Lynd Junction. It was funny as it was literally in the middle of no where with nothing around it and it was as dry and dusty as possible - just like you see in the movies of Aussie outback.

We moved on this morning and are now back in Townsville and just set up at the motor camp for a couple of nights. The road we were travelling on was a loop road and only had one strip in the middle of a lot of it that was tar sealed and then big gravel verges, which was fine until you came across one of these massive truck trains - a cab then four trailers - gee they are huge and we just had no option but to pull right over onto the gravel and wait for them to pass as they didn't seem to move off the tarseal strip and hey! who were we to argue with them - they win!!

The weather is super hot here at the moment with 28 degrees outside and warmer still in the caravan so I think we will stop all this raving and go for a swim!