Nambour to Waverly Creek Wayside
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Well, as predicted, today was all about hauling our tired, dragging, rear-ends 700 kilometers or so closer to Cairns and the wonders awaiting us there (better be!). We pretty much drove steadily for 10 and a half hours, stopping only for gas and a couple of minor attractions.
We got out of the campground around 8:45 and continued up the Sunshine Coast. But it was overcast and later began to rain. It proceeded to rain off and on for most of the day, sometimes fairly heavily.
The first big excitement was the Big Pineapple. It didn’t last long but we can add it to the list of oversized objects we’ve come across.
As with other parts of Australia, the “coast” road doesn’t really go along the coast. Not in the Highway 1 sense. More in the US 101 in California sense meaning that with a 20-40km drive to the right, you can get to the coast. And many areas sounded very nice. Fraser Island, Hervey Bay, the Coral Coast. The billboards looked like South Pacific islands. We really wanted to go have a look. But we can’t. No time. We’re holding out hope that Cairns and the Barrier Reef are going to pay off. It’s a major bet.
We were driving in 1 hour shifts. We’ve noticed we’re both getting a little punchy, tripping more easily, not noticing things, making bad decisions (i.e. letting the tech center guy mess with my laptop). We’re getting road weary and for safety sake, figured an hour was all anyone should really take on. It worked out well.
This stretch of highway (well, road), is known as the Bruce Highway, which I’m sure is named for someone important who’s last name is Bruce. Like Lenny Bruce (well, not him). But it struck us as humorous because of the Monty Python skit where all the Australian’s were named Bruce. (What’s your name? John. Mind if we call you Bruce to avoid confusion?)
We passed sugar cane fields for the first time. It seems to be big business up here. And a banana plantation, but just the one. And of course, more cows (although a different variety) and sheep. The scenery, while nice, looks pretty much the same as we’ve seen for the last few days. One odd thing we did notice though, was that many of the houses were built up off the ground, on stilts. Not particularly high, maybe 2-4 feet. The only thing we could figure was that maybe it gets really rainy here and it pays to be up off the ground. But we didn’t find out.
About 4:30 we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn in Rockhampton and officially entered “the tropics”. We stopped at an Information Center where they’ve put up an official marker and got pictures. They also had an Internet connection, so we spent 20 minutes doing very quick e-mails. We’re addicted to Internet connections and can’t pass them by.
Rockhampton is also the beef capital of Queensland, so there are a series of large cows placed strategically around town. We managed to photograph a couple of them.
We were trying to do 700 kilometers today and managed 725. A new record we think. Shortly before we stopped we passed 10,000 kilometers total. A major milestone. Still just under 1000 to go. We’re in between towns and ended up in a good sized wayside rest area that is clearly designed for this purpose. It almost looks like a campground, with tables, garbage cans, BBQ’s, etc. Not very far off the road but traffic is pretty light.
The rain has stopped and the clouds are breaking up. The air has cooled down considerably as well. It was warm and muggy most of the day. It’s probably time to switch back to shorts tomorrow. One more big driving day tomorrow.
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