From Mount Isa to Barkly Homestead NT

I did leave rather late this morning as I needed to pick up my forwarded mail from Sydney, fill in some paper work, looked for and found Westpac Bank, dropped my deposit slips into their mailbox, filled up with Diesel and by the time I drove out of Town, heading North West towards the border of the Northern Territory, about 200km away, it was just after 10.30.

Many times I have heard people say how monotonous Australia's landscape can be, that everything looks the same, flat colours, too much light etc. etc. I can't say that I agree with that view, as I see the landscape change constantly, if often only subtly. Today I saw a variety of different outlooks, from scrub showing a lot of red dirt in between the grass and then miles and miles of Savannah flat country, yellow grass to the horizon, the horizon being a cloudless blue in every direction, no interruption to the view, almost like looking at the horizon from a ship in calm seas. Whatever direction I turn my head, the same, no-one ahead of me, no-one seemingly behind me, the road is all mine, traveling along at around 100kmh.

Take a real wide view...

A bit later the landscape changes back to scrub with lots of termite mounds, this time they seem to be much larger, man-size and twice as wide. Roadkill on the section coming in and traveling NT was way down, I saw only two fresh carcasses with large eagles having a feast. There must be a reason. It can't be explained by the traffic as the speed limit from Queensland is 110kmh and in NT its 130kmh. I'm thinking, maybe they have run them all down already, or the 'roos are smarter this time of the border, or maybe something different altogether...

I've turned on my aircon after I left Camooweal as the sun was starting to make a real impact in my driver's cabin. Closed all windows and while Australia rolled past outside my window, I listened to L.v.B. 6th Symphony, turned up to underline the scenery outside.

I'm really enjoying this!

Camooweal is represented by a 'larger' dot on my map, but, in fact its just a small line-up of houses, a filling station on each end of town, a Police Station somewhere in between, a small shop doing double-duty as filling station and Post Office. I bought an icecream to keep me cool, topped up my fuel tank and sat in the grass under a tree to take a rest.


The campsite at Barkly Homestead

About Mount Isa, Mining Metropolis

Today, being Sunday, all shops are closed at the Isa except a new IGA store, just across the road, being the main Highway from Cloncurry. I still had a freebie ticket to checkout the local historical display that is setup in part of the Information Centre building. Looking at the displayed items and the old photographs, I get to realise, yet again, all the hardships people had to endure to even just get here, even after rail lines had been built

I also met a (now) local who came here with her husband a few months ago from Sydney. He is an electrician and works 4 days on, then 4 days off, down the mine. They both love it here, even though the quality of the available coffees and cappucinos are not quite up to scratch yet, as she put it. I tried a cappucino at the little café at the Info Centre. I thought it was quite good (if expensive at $3.80). People are friendly as you would ecpect in any country town, even though the population is (according to the local brochure) about 23,500.

The Mining Company seems to be doing many things for the general population, as well as enhance tourism. A nice park has been setup including a lily pond and a nice waterfall, also an auditorium for all sorts of events. It has probably been setup fairly recently as a lot of the vegetation there needs to grow a bit more. Mount Isa has been in drought for a number of years and from what I have seen so far, all the riverbeds have dried up for hundreds of kilometres. The Mt Isa catchment is now only filled to about 17%. The city is getting its water now from one of the nearby lakes. Even though my camping area is very nicely shaded with trees, the ground is powder dry - when I pour a bit of water on it, it just sits on top for quite a while before the ground will finally absorb it.

This is my spot in the park at Mount Isa.

Cloncurry to Mt Isa

One of the old Pubs opposite the Post Office in Cloncurry

I was right about a cool night at Cloncurry and I was also awake a lot. Why did I not notice that this lot is so close to the Highway? Well, there were lots and lots of road trains going all night in both directions - I had a few interruptions, that’s all - and my own fault for not checking that out. The way to Mount Isa was nice and easy, some interesting views on the way - unfortunately my camera battery needed a re-charge and so got only a few pics on the tail-end of the trip.

There are several Rocky Mountaintops on the way, the colours mostly reddish brown and quite striking.

Views on the road to Mt Isa from Cloncurry

I also drove past the closed-down Mine of "Mary Kathleen" which had been closed in the 90s due to lack of demand for Uranium. This whole are is literally saturated with lots of heavy metals, Lead, Copper, Uranium, Silver, Gold and also Zinc - needless to say that the chimneys of the Isa are smoking - and it’s the only smoke pollution visible around the area.

Some smoke from one of the smoke stacks at Mt Isa

Isa is very much a well-to-do township and there are still plenty of jobs on offer in the mining industry. On arrival, my first port-of-call is usually the Information Centre. They had a tour into a mine, starting about 30 mins after my arrival. It was highly interesting getting a hands-on low-down on what the mining industry is or was all about, at least as far as the working miners are concerned. Let me tell you, it was (and probably still is) Hard Yakka, well paid mind you, but I think I would not have had the physical stamina required. Apart from that the working environment is very life-threatening at the best of times. There wer 18 participants on the tour, most of them "Oldies" like myself. Everyone got to wear an orange overall and belt, an orange helmet and everyione was issued with a re-chargeable battery pack with a light that needed to be clicked onto the helmet bracket in front, to help us light the way.

The tour lasted for two and a half hour, various situations underground were explained and some major equipment was demonstrated, most of it generating a large volume of noise so we all had to wear earmuffs. No cameras allowed underground, so no pictures.

I was quite surprised how bright daylight was when we returned back to the surface. I also found a nice trailer park on the outskirts with, wait for it, 3 lots of Germans as my adjacent neighbours.

My camper "spot" at Mt Isa

They do love this country and I can't say I blame them, because it is a great country, with me having so much good luck, to actually see it.

Normanton to Cloncurry

I got away from Normanton rather late this morning at about 10.30, heading south towards yet another old mining town, Cloncurry which also happens to be the birth place of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, still operating to this day.

The one thing different driving today was, that I was heading South all day, meaning, always with the sun at my back. Not a lot of traffic but still lots of road kill, including another calf. The local eagles are truly well-fed, as they do all the cleaning-up.

Wide open spaces

Gradually the scenery changes as I get further south, now also a lot of spinnifex growing in some places, sometimes just bleached dry white grass stretching all the way to the horizon. This really shows the vastness of this country! In many places lots of saltbush making a living in the dry conditions. In many places I see road signs warning of "Flood Area" and although hard to imagine in those dry conditions today, there are times when thousands of square kilometres at a time are literally under water, the roads all but impassable. I can only hope that none of this grass will catch fire.

I stopped about half way down at Burke & Wills Roadhouse for a short break and an icecream.

The current price of fuel at Burke & Wills Roadhouse



Two girls serving the counter, both holiday workers, both attractive, one with a broad Scots accent, told me she was from Aberdeen, the other, blond and tall was from Magdeburg in Germany. Both trying to make a little extra money to help pay for their holiday.

Every 45km, or so, Telstra has setup tall Transmitter/Repeaters for the Rural Telephone Services. As there is no visible power supply I assume they are all powered by Solar Power.


I arrived in Cloncurry about 3.00pm, filled up with Diesel and found a nice campsite to spend the night. It is a nice spot but also right on the Highway with still lots of road-trains going past, (now 7.00pm) I hope they won't be going all night. I am glad its cooling down a bit so it should be a pleasant night.

Croydon to Normanton

Uneventful drive from Croydon to Normanton. Early morning, excellent road conditions, little traffic and keeping speed to 90kmh brings fuel saving of around 10%. I Am impressed! The way Diesel prices are going, at Normanton its $1.84/l so its really important to keep consumption down. The landscape on today's trip, much the same as yesterday, also true, the further west I get, the drier everything seems to become.

Even though they had some flooding a few months ago, two wide reverbeds I crossed were just wide expanses of sand, not a drop of water in sight. At Normanton water supply does not seem a problem for human consumption and there is also the large Norman River flowing at the edge of the town into the Gulf. Karumba, about 70km up the road is the port access for shipment of live animals.

Normanton is also a town with lots of Australian History back in the mid 1800s. The local Visitors Centre has many pictures on display that relate to that time. The display of a croc killed back in 1958 is rather intimidating to look at, none of us would stand a chance anywhere near it if it was still alive.

Yes, its only Plastic, but that very size was the one brought in

There are 3 Pubs in Normanton, one looks rather "rocky" also with lots of Aborigines hanging about outside, but that may have something to do with the fact that it was payday today. Anyway, after some enquiries with the locals, went and ordered F&C at one of the Pubs. It was the most expensive F&C ($20), had a bit of Salad on the side and I can report it was excellent, Burramundi pretty good after all. Since the stuff is grown there I had an expectation of a price advantage, but that did not turn out to be so…

More tomorrow from Cloncurry.

Undara on to Croydon

This path leads to the entry point of one of the Lava Tubes

The 2-hour tour this morning to the lava tubes was very interesting, even managed to take a couple of images in time exposure, "painting" the background with the flashlight of the tour guide.




Painted with a flashlight - this is what it looks like inside one of the tubes


The atmosphere is relaxed, very informative and also lots of fun for all us oldies taking part in the tour.



The light comes in through the collapsed roof of the tube

I left Undara about 10.30, drove to Mount Surprise where I was told I would get signal, did my upload and also tried to send emails, which have since been returned and needed to be re-sent from Croydon. It was overcast when I left but breaks in the clouds could be seen further west, so as I came further west the sky slowly started to turn completely blue. There was markedly more traffic coming towards me on this leg of the journey.

I am now in Croydon, on the Savannah Way, about 350km west from Undara. There are only about 160km to go to Normanton tomorrow.

The old Pub in Croydon

I am staying at the local caravan park, very green and spacious. Went for walkabout town and finally into the "Poddy Dodger Bar" for a cold beer. Yeah, I know you want to know what a "Poddy Dodger" is, because I did - and found the answer at my second attempt from one of the Locals. To relieve you of the suspense, its a "Cattle Thief". Now you all have a new word from the Australian Outback to include in your dictionary of words you must know.

It is Savannah grass lands all the way, but the further west I get, the grass is getting shorter and whiter, the trees in the scrub smaller, lots of carcasses on the road, mostly small 'roos, but I also saw a run-over Brahman cow and two black feral pigs that had been flattened by trucks. The flying kind of wildlife, like eagles, crows and also butcher birds are being kept in a well-fed state. Like the tour guide through the lava tubes said this morning, the biggest predator around these parts is called "Toyota". So, now you know too. He also showed us a variety of leafs and berries of the bush that will kill you in no time at all. One lot is called strychnine berry. He said if you ate one, you would still have time to cook an egg, but not enough time to eat it. Thats the second bit of bush wisdom for today, I think I will leave it at that.

Cape Tribulation to Undara

An easy drive back the way I came yesterday, then across the inlet with the ferry, on to Mosman, where I finally picked up signal on my Optus phone and called Serene. When I continue I turn right in Mosman from The Captain Cook Highway onto the road that will take me back up to the Tablelands. Steep winding, winding, winding, tight corners most of them and I get to look forward to get back up top.

Rainforest here, all the way up. Once there, I turn left onto the Mareeba Highway towards Atherton where I stop to re-fuel (only 24 litres but its better to start out with a full tank.) and go to the Bank. From Atherton I drive on the Kennedy Highway to Ravenshoe, Mt Garnet (First, the rolling hills I encountered a few days ago, then Grassland and scrub, interspersed with lots of Termite mounds, thousands of them in all shapes and sizes, their colour depending on the soil they are made of...) and finally I turn right onto the Savannah Highway.

Lots of Termite mounds, thousands of them in the Savannah

From Ravenshoe onwards I encounter quite a number of road trains, huge trucks with 3 or 4 trailers, the whole rig usually in excess of 50 m long - luckily I pass them, always where the road is plenty wide. There are many sections in between where the sealed road is only wide enough for one vehicle at the time, this means in on-coming traffic situation I have to move over to the left, with the left 2 tyres running in the dirt while the other vehicle is passing. The road is dry and the shoulders are firm, so apart from dust there is no problem. No road train passed me on those narrow sections of road. About 25 km on I turn left onto a small sealed road that will take me to the "Undara Lavatubes" that I want to see tomorrow morning. I have done rather a lot more driving today then I originally had planned, so maybe tomorrow I can take it easy instead, before I drive further westward.


The organisation that runs the tour tomorrow also run the campsite and have been allocated "C-22" as my parking spot by an extremely well organised team. This is an unpowered site, the charge is only $10 for the use of all facilities. Having stopped it feels like I am in the middle of the bush, its very quiet and peaceful - a real change after the hustle and bustle of Port Douglas, yesterday morning. Unfortunately, here too is no phone or internet reception and my blog update will have to wait till tomorrow where I will update the data from the side of the road when I pull over at Mount Surprise, about 45km from here - I am told there is a transmission tower so I will have plenty signal.

As I indulged with a very good meal last night, tonight its going to be only baguette, Vollkornbrot with Salami and cheese tonight, possibly with a glass of whats left of the 'white' in my fridge. Looks like I need to re-stock beer and wine at the next opportunity, somewhere...

I,ve done it! Uploaded at Mount Surprise with heaps of signal from Telstra. More tomorrow, signal permitting. Heading up into Giant Crocodile country, Normanton tomorrow.

Here is one for my mate Eckhard, seen on the back of a "Wicked" campervan...
" I have substituted sex with food. Now I can't even get into my own pants.."

Cairns to Cape Tribulation

A typical street view at Cairns

I left the Trailer Park at Cairns around 9.30 this morning, went to the local IGA store with some more goodies for the fridge and another 10 litres of drinking water to re-fill my water container. Yes, Cairns is a busy town, modern, with wide roads and lots of green space in between. The feeling I get is that its wide open, lots of light, well designed road ways, well built and maintained, most intersections being round-abouts of proper size that don't look like some of those tiny things that are called round-abouts in Sydney. It’s a joy to drive on roads like this, so good on you, Cairns and good on you Queensland!


The first stop was Port Douglas which is well known as a popular tourist spot for people down south in Sydney or Melbourne. There are many resort type places along the highway coming into town, everything looking well maintained and clean. The centre of town looks and feels a lot like Double Bay in Sydney, or shop-till-you-drop, everything seemingly geared to collect money off the tourists that have flown in from the south for a few days.



Street scenes in Mosman

Not surprisingly, the locals refer to Port Douglas as Plastic City. I stayed only long enough for a wander-around and a few photos and then drove on to Mosman to visit Mosman gorge in the rain forest. It was nice enough but I had expected something more spectacular…

A quick look at the Mosman Gorge

The drive north of Mosman to Cape Tribulation started with the obligatory cane fields either side of the road, but after a few kilometres the road came close to the coast, no more space for agriculture, following a winding pattern, the ocean to my right, the wide open panorama of the glittering sea. To my left large volcanic bolders or rockfaces, mostly basalt or sandstone of varying colours, but mostly near black to red brown, with lots of signs indicating "falling rocks". The road comes to an end about 20km south of Cape Tribulation, where a vehicle ferry takes me across the inlet so I can continue my travel at an even more leisurely pace along a narrow winding road through the rainforest, stopping only at a lookout point, presenting me with a grand view of the ocean facing south. The further north I get, the narrower the road becomes in many places, with many a "crocodile-back" speed humps (round boulders protruding from the concrete), that really slow you down, with the aim to help protect local wildlife, mostly Cassowary, crossing the road. Cape Trib only consists of a few houses, spread out along the road, some of them well hidden in the lush undergrowth and some shops, catering to tourist needs, as well as a campground about half a kilometre off the road by the beach, where I am staying tonight and also a great Restaurant called "Whet" where I had dinner tonight. It was no mistake, the food and the ambience were both excellent and I would recommend it to anyone.

The 'Local Store" at Cape Tribulation
Unfortunately in this part of Australia I have no Mobile phone coverage or Internet, so I am completely cut off from the world - strange, when I am so used to always having a connection with my friends and the rest of the world via my Mobile or my Internet connection. As a result, this story will have to wait to come on-line when I return to more "civilised" parts of the country where I can get onto the Internet again with my trusty "Next-G" device connected to my Laptop.

At this time of year it is peak season to travel in this part of Queensland, there are no moskitoes and the nights are cool with low humidity. Definitely the time of year to be here! Once the wet season starts again into summer it will not be pleasant to spend time up here and for this reason tourists will stay away. This is probably true for most of the country at this Latitude and I am well advised to be out of Darwin and Broome by September, which means that I have about 2 months to complete my explorations in the North before heading south into Perth and beyond.

Atherton Tablelands then on to Cairns

Started out fairly late from Mission Beach to travel north but firstly to the Atherton Tablelands, which are behind the coastline and rise to around 900m above sea level. I drove to Innisfail where I turned off the main highway towards Milaa Milaa. The number-one crop before ascending to higher ground is still sugar cane, many of the fields in bloom with millions of silvery featherdusters waving at me wherever I drive.

Even though this is a tropical area, at this altitude it looks almost like somewhere in New Zealand

As I get to higher ground, various fruit plantations, Banana, Papaya, Mango. There are several waterfalls in the area, so a bit of a detour would let me see 3 of them in various tropical settings.








Two different waterfalls in the same area


I had very much intended to perhaps spend a night up there at the table lands, but found it rather a lot cooler than what I had anticipated, particularly with a strong southerly airsteam blowing in from the coast. I continued on to Cairns where temperatures were a lot more pleasant, even though there was also a strong southerly blowing down here.

My first impression of Cairns is that of a cosmopolitan tourist town, catering to a variety of tastes and budgets. It does feel really nice though driving through what seems to be a thriving city. I like it very much. I have also found a Trailer Park not too far from the town centre which will allow easy access to restaurants and shops to help me re-plenish my fridge with drink and food.

Tomorrow, after some shopping I will be going on to Port Douglas, Mosman Gorge that I am really looking forward to. I will need to cross the chanel before going on up to Cape Tribulation.

That waterfall near Ingham...

Another glorious day starting out from Ingham Trailer Park. The original intention was to head out of town, going north but last night I met and talked for a long time to 3 young Swiss guys, one with girlfriend. They had travelled across from Tenant Creek, as well as through large parts along the North Queensland Coast. They highly recommended that I schould visit "Wallaman Falls", about 50km west of Ingham. As a result, my first trip this morning took me to that destination. The road to get there is mostly sealed but there are two sections of dirt that need to be negotiated with a little more care as well as reduced speed. There is also quite a climb up on a very winding road with many steep curves etc.

I can say, it was well worth the effort, the waterfall nothing short of spectacular, dropping over 260m down a gigantic rockface. It was a good idea to go in the morning as the whole scenery was lit up by the morning sun, bringing out a whole array of colour of the surrounding rockface. No people, just the sound of nature - wow!

Simply S.P.E.C.T.A.C.U.L.A.R
The return trip took me back down the mountain, through Ingham and from there, going north, all the way to Mission Beach. I have checked into the local council trailer park, right on the beach. It does not get much better than that.

Going from Airlie Beach via Townsville to Ingham

Left the campground at Airlie Beach at 9.00 am this morning, with my first port-of-call Townsville in my sights. There was quite a bit more traffic today in both directions, but not heavy.

To conserve fuel I try to pretty much stay at the speed limit of 100kmh, the roads being mostly very good it feels real easy to just cruise along and enjoy the scenery. Some way out of Airlie the surrounding landscape changed from sugar cane back to Australian Scrub with mostly lots of small paperbark trees, the odd larger Eucalypt interspersed. From around Ayr onwards the sugarcane was back with its narrow gauge transportation rail network criss crossing the highway every so often.

At Townsville I made contact with Jillian Ruhl, wife of an old friend George who had passed away a few years ago. It was good to see her again and spend a little time on what had happened since the last time we met on Magnetic Island, so many years ago.



Jill is the taller one
There are speedboat races being held at Townsville, therefore all campsites were chockfull. I decided to head a bit further north, made a stop at a place called Balgal Beach, about 40km north of Townsville. One of the locals got really upset that someone wanted to stay the night there, even so it was clearly indicated that only tents were allowed. He did call the police to have me and another guy removed. I left before the cops arrived.

I finally stopped at Ingham, 70km north of Townsville and found a magnificent trailer park instead.

Leaving the Trailer Park next morning

A Day on the water at Airlie Beach on Ragamuffin

Well, Ragamuffin, its crusty crew, the day on the water, full marks. I really enjoyed heading out to "White Haven Beach" on Whitsunday Island. A lot more people on the beach this time ariound as about half a dozen Yachts were anchored offshore having off-loaded their passengers onto the beach.

Looking from the beach to Ragamuffin off-shore.

Even though the water was perfectly turquoise, the white pure silica sand seemed a lot brighter than I remembered from my last visit there back in '89, in fact, it felt to me as a total overload with BRIGHTNESS and I took shelter from all that bright light, a lot of the time under some trees at the edge of the beach. The crew kept passing around the UV blocker #30 as it is getting very easy to pick up a not-so-great sunburn.

As you can see, I did take a few shots on the beach and along the way so you may get the idea of what the day was like. A lovely cold lunch was laid on by the crew and a glass of Champagne to top it all off. We did strike a bit of wind on the way there in the morning, a great experience when you see Ragamuffin do what it does extremely well, sail at high speed; after all, it used to be a Maxi Racer that won many of the great Ocean Races in its past.

With both, Main and Headsail straining to push the yacht along, it was a sight to behold.

From Clairview to Airlie Beach

I left Clairview around 9am and was rewarded with virtually no traffic either way, except coming closer to Mackay. Found a Shell station that charged $1.73 / l Diesel all the rest were $1.79. The further north I am heading the more tropical things are beginning to look.


Sugar cane as far as the eye can see

All the way up the dominating crop by the roadside is sugar cane, only every so often I came across a few paddocks with Brahman cattle, also the odd horse or two.
Many times the roadway is crossed by narrow-gauge rail lines for the transport of the sugar cane at harvest. There must be many miles of these tracks leading to the cane fields from the sugar refineries.
Cloudcover has been about 5-6/8 most of the way, even a drop of rain seemed possible - but not a drop.
I also notice the humidity in the air has gone up, so without a breeze it gets to be quite sticky while I sit here typing out my blog. There were also far less dead kangaroos by the side of the road today, which came as a pleasant surprise. They usually come out in the early mornings and late afternoons, sure enough some get hit by trucks, providing food for the eagles and crows that are quick to get stuck in a free meal, one that should last for a few days too.

Overlooking Airlie Harbour


There is now an artificial lagoon adjacent to the harbour, much frequented by visitors


I am staying at a caravan park, halfway between Airlie Beach and Shute Harbour, set back in some lush greenery, the only noise at the moment are light single engine aircraft taking off on the next property. I am told they stop at 5.00 pm and so look forward to a quiet and peaceful night.

Clairview was a lovely location by the sea except a trainline with goods trains is running part of the night and parallel to the rail line the main highway with traffic into the early hours of the morning - sleep was a bit haphazard.

I am looking forward to spend a couple of days here and hope to take a trip out to the reef. (Prices have definetely gone through the roof since my last visit, now costing about $190.00 per person. I am not sure whats included but intend to investigate further a little later.

Just booked myself in for a day's sailing on the "Ragamuffin" a 24 m racing yacht. I hope the weather will be kind and I look forward to a great day, starting at 8.30 in the morning.

Gladstone to Clairview

Took a few pictures making my way up to Clairview, which is about 330km north of Gladstone.




The original plan was to check in at St. Lawrence, about 35 km back south from here but it turned out a no-no as that campground was smack in the middle of a paddock, dry and dusty, in other words, not what I had envisaged as a place to stay. So I drove on to this place which is almost like bush camping, - lots of Lorikeets and also a few black Cockatoos that were calling up in the gumtrees surrounding my van.


My campsite at Clairview
The further north I get I notice a change ib scenery and also vegetation, more tropical I would say, even though the landscape seems covered in eucalypts. Part of what I saw on the way up were flat grass lands, way in the distance mountain ranges, many dead kangaroos by the side of the road - there must at least have been close to a dozen korpses, all looking fairly recent because of the lack of smell and the bodies not bloated like balloons…


Beach at Clairview at low tide

Hervey Bay to Gladstone

Last night Werner and his wife Carol invited me (how nice of them) to join them for dinner in their Caravan. I shared a bottle of "Red" with Werner, as we had been drinking his home-brew beer which was not bad at all. I don't think either of us was feeling a lot of pain by the time I hit the sack.

Left Hervey Bay around 10.30 this morning after picking up a couple of things from Aldi. The drive was uneventful, not much to see hardly any traffic, well spaced out vehicles, often Trailers in tow. Some of the signs are outrageously funny, like the one below.

"Don't Sleep AND drive" - indeed!

The landscape mostly stands of eucalypts but also closer to Hervey Bay grasslands in shades of pink with wide open spaces to view into the distance.


Closer to Gladstone a mountain range inland. It’s a bit warmer here then at my last stop but a hazy blue sky after the bright blue of the previous 2 days looking out over the waters to Fraser Island on the horizon.

Gladstone looks like it has grown since my last visit back in 1989. I don't intend to explore as I want to move on further north tomorrow instead.
The town itself is an industrial town, providing employment with giant Aluminium smelters, as there are large Bauxite deposits in this area.

Brunswick Heads via Slacks Creek and Maleny to Hervey Bay

Had to pick up cusion at "Motorhome Conversion Co." and to also fix pull-out sun shade on van. Turned out that a screw holding the vertical support bar on the left had come undone, the screw and washer rattling inside the roll-up aluminium bar. Dennis at MHC repaired it for me. Good work. From there I headed to Malaney to say hello to my friends Babs and Klaus at the "King Ludwigs" - naturally a German lunch was very much on the agenda and a couple of Franziskaner Weissbiers to keep things lubricated.


The fabulous views from "King Ludwigs" to the Glasshouse Mountains.


Looks like I will be spending the night with my van in their parking lot. Maleny being about 450m above sea level it is also several degrees cooler up here than near the ocean, may well turn out to be a cool night?? Anyway, tomorrow off again going north.

Famous last words… well, it WAS cold last night at Maleny! Went to bed about 10.30pm, rolled up in my 2 doonas and snug as a bug… I was not cold and very glad I brought an extra doona cover. Had a shower at Bab's house and was invited to join them for breakfast on their verandah. Definetely a great way to start a day! I said Good Bye just after 10, then heading back down the hills and was on my way. Today was fairly cool all the way up to Hervey Bay, but bright blue sky all the way. I booked into a campsite right on the beach where I want to stay for 2 days.


View from my campsite across to Fraser Island.


Met the guy next door, Werner, who is Latvian born with his lovely Phillipina wife Carol. We spent the afternoon in the sun talking. The seafood shop across the road on the Esplanade looked good, so I ordered F & C which turned out to be very good - a glass or two of the White in my fridge to round it all off. Life is GOOD!