Travelling Home

A video link appears at the bottom of this blog post.

On disembarking from the Magnetic Island ferry, we headed directly to Bowen, pausing only for necessities and roadwork. We stayed at the Bowen Arrow Motel. Now, who could resist it with a name like that?

More roadworks south of Bowen. One 20 km strip with 15 km at 60 kph and the other 5 at 80 kph. Traffic was not heavy, so the drive was pleasant. The skies were partly cloudy with enough sprinkles at Proserpine to kick the automatic wipers into action for a swish or two.

We used the Mackay Ring Road for the first time. It completely misses the city, leaving the Bruce (north bound) at the BP truck stop south of town, runs west for about 3 km and then turns north to re-join the Bruce near Farleigh sugar mill. Three km at 80 kph and 8 at 100 kph. Saves a bit of time and city traffic.

If you break a Bowen to Brisbane trip into three days travel, then Marlborough is where you end up on the first night. We have stayed there in the caravan, but never used the motel. It is dated, perhaps bit tired, but so are we. But we had a comfortable night and a good meal in the restaurant. There are also workers camps on site, so they get good patronage from camp occupants.

We stopped for lunch at Clairview. The caravan park has grown and is now called the BarraCrab Caravan Park and boasts a bistro and bar. But we ate our sandwiches seated in a picnic shelter overlooking the Coral Sea….with the tide out.

The final two days of our trip were just more driving but keeping daily distance to about 400 km. We did morning coffee at a pie cart at the south of Rockhampton.

We turned off at Fred Haig Dam, just north of Gin Gin. This dam holds back the waters of Lake Monduran. It supplies irrigation water to Bundaberg primary producers. We had spent a night there about 12 years ago. It has a good caravan park, built below the retaining wall and patronised by Barramundi fishermen.

We spent Saturday night at Childers in a pleasant motel on the southern end of town. Childers proved to be the start of cool wet weather. We had intermittent rain all the way home.

South of Maryborough, in fact south of Tiaro, a sign by the highway advises of a tourist drive through Bauple. We have both seen and ignored it many times. But this was the day that we finally succumbed to curiosity and took the drive.

Bauple is a small, old town but that is about all. Not much there but we did see a sign advising of a “bypass meeting” which suggests that the highway diversion around Gympie might just be diverting through Bauple. We didn’t stop for photos

It was too wet for a picnic morning coffee so we called at The Coffee Club at Gympie. This store of TCC has about the best range of cakes of any and seems to be a popular meeting place for Gympieites. It is always busy.

We arrived home at about 12.30 pm and got on with unpacking. Another successful trip under our belt, despite being interrupted.

Thanks, Ruth, for agreeing to being dragged around the bush again. I am never so happy as when I am driving down another remote country road, in pursuit of another bit of Australiana. Ruth knows that you can’t take the bush out of the boy. Even when he has become an old boy.