On the road

Our trip is coming to it’s end. Current location is Darwin and tomorrow we take off for Perth/Fremantle. It has been busy time within these two weeks while driving motorhome from Brisbane to Cairns and seeing friends.

In last update I told about our visit Gavins farm which was interesting to see how they are growing strawberries, pineapples and mangoes.  Second driving day we had little problems to find caravan park with free power site and we had to dive little longer than we were planned. After about 525km drive we landed in Rockhampton and it was already dark. This part of the trip was fairly empty with ~100km without any houses and road was not in good condition. Noise in motorhome was fairly annoying sometimes.

This leg was long and there were lots of trucks on the road and they were driving fast. We were all the time tailgating even I tried to keep good speed about 90-100kph. Trucks drive about 105 110 or maybe more. In Australia overtaking lanes are for trucks to take over small cars and not opposite like in Finland. After setting up the camp we walked towards the city to find some dinner. And this night we decided to test Hungry Jacks.

At morning we browsed Rockhamton for display cable for Aino’s laptop which display got broken. Aim is to use TV screen in motorhome as computer display. We found the cable and later we succeeded in our plan and Aino could use her computer again. Views were almost like previous day but roads maybe slightly better. Some cattle wandering inside fences trying to find something to eat among the dry brown grass.   Next stop was MacKay distance about 330km and we arrived well in time and girls got some time to spent in the pool. This caravan park was nice and tidy. After pool break we headed to shopping center to get dinner and some breakfast update to our motorhome.  Walking distance appeared to be longer than we thought but we ended into Red Rooster for dinner and bought some food items from woolies from the neighbor.

Next stop was planned to Bowen and nice looking Harbor Lights caravan park jus beside beach. That appeared to be disappointment, yes it was close to beach but not a sandy beach at all and it was low tide and even some boats laying on bottom. Caravan park was also partly used as long term storage. So quite soon we decided to start our motorhome again and drive couple of kilometers to Queen Beach little north and spend some time at there, walking  on the beach, enjoying the sun and collecting shells. Then we headed back to center of Bowen to have a pizza. Unfortunately that restaurant was still closed and we headed to caravan park and set up the camp and wondered back to center (500m) and enjoyed extremely good and big pizzas and brought almost half of that with us for next days lunch.

Friday morning and our last leg to Ingham. Early start because we planned to stop in Townsville to see the reef trip possibilities. But at first we stopped in Ayr for a cup of coffee and little walk at the main street. Nice little town and weather was so nice that we really enjoyed the walk. Then we headed to Townsville and stopped in information center before the city and grabbed some leaflets and maps but no information of reef cruises. Then we headed to beach that was right beside the city and that was nice. We went swimming into the sea because there were lifeguards and marked (net fenced for jellyfish and sharks) area for swimming. That was nice water was about 24 degrees and fairly bright. After a while of beach life we headed to Ingham to meet our relatives in there and we arrived nicely in time before darkness laid down.

Friday night we meet Lea and Esko and their family and have dinner together. Their house was fairly crowded because Marko and his family were staying there because their house was under repairmen after the cyclone damages. So we spent our nights in motorhome which was fine for us because we had used to that already.