We are just south of Townsville and hoping to get to Mission Beach tomorrow. It has been a very scenic drive up through wide valleys of sugar cane, bounded by big hills.

We had a couple of days at Airlie Beach which had breathtaking scenery. While we were there we also went on a day's cruise around the Whitsunday Islands, with a BBQ lunch on Whitehaven Beach, a beautiful 7km long beach with fine white sand, a walk up through thick vegetation to a spectacular lookout, and snorkelling at Mantaray Bay where we viewed the coral and fish of the Great Barrier Reef. All in all, a great day! EF

Change of Plan

Big change of plan this morning! We decided not to travel west to Longreach but instead travel north along the coast. So we drove up through the cane fields and are at Mackay.If we decide to go to Longreach we can do it from Mount Isa later on.
RF

Just want to say many many thanks to our wonderful cousins who have given us great hospitality and help while our vehicle has been repaired in Rocky. We hope to see them in Perth sometime.

All going well we will be leaving for Longreach tomorrow. EF

Stuck in Rockhampton

We have had a little hold up. The aircon in the ute destroyed itself yesterday. Its in a workshop and we are waiting for parts to come up by air freight tonight.Pretty well all the air con is being replaced including pulling out the whole dash and putting in a new evaporater behind it.Apparently caused by a dodgy repair job 8 months ago when the system was not flushed after a compressor failure.Hopefully we will be back on the road on the weekend.In the meantime we are catching up with Erica's cousins and having a look around.I hope to go fishing tomorrow with a couple of the cousins.Flathead 9 inches across the head are promised!
After we get on the road next stop is Longreach to have a look there. RF

We are now at Tannum Sands, just south of Gladstone visiting friends for a couple of days. From Nambour we drove up through Maryborough and Bundaberg, then turned off the Bruce Highway to spend a couple of days at 1770, a town named after Captain Cook's landing there in 1770. The area is not so built up, being more isolated, so we enjoyed the natural bush setting at the caravan park and having less travellers around like ourselves. We will be heading up through Gladstone to Rockhampton and Emu Park on Saturday. EF

We are having a couple of nights at Bribie Island, just north of Brisbane! The day is warm and sunny and a million miles away from the cold foggy wet weather of Toowoomba. The beach is beautiful and the bush thick. We have cleaned the mud off the ute and I'm thinking of going for a swim. We drove up through Esk and Kilcoy, through some hilly and rich vegetable and fruit growing areas to Caboolture and then Bribie Island. Tomorrow we are heading for Nambour and then, who knows? We don't... EF

We are currently out at Farm Fest, about 20kms west of Toowoomba, helping out with the Eastern Spreaders stand. It was freezing yesterday, about 15 degrees, so it can only improve. Hopefully we sell lots of spreaders, mixers and roller mills. We will be here until Friday when we will go back in to Brisbane.

We had a good trip up the coast from Muswellbrook through Port Macquarie, South West Rocks, Coffs Harbour, Byron Bay and stayed a couple of nights at a caravan park in Kingscliff, about 20kms south of the Gold Coast. We spent half a day at Tropical Fruit World, which was nearby and toured up along the coast to see the high rise buildings and beaches along the Gold Coast. The weather was just starting to warm up when we left the coast to climb up from the Lockyer Valley to the cold at Toowoomba. All the places we have been to have been beautiful. The rivers are wide and the vegetation green and lush. EF