We're up, early; there's a lot to do. The weather, the casual observer will be surprised to learn, is hot'n'sunny. Much tidying up and throwing out takes place, and everything we can't leave behind is stuffed in to the Tarago. Even without Chris and his luggage, somehow we seem to have more stuff than ever before. The Yahoos are nowhere to be seen; plainly mornings are not their thing. Shame; I'll miss them, somehow. We get away about 10; at 12, having been on the road for nearly two entire hours, we have to stop and buy more VB. We may incidentally have some lunch, as well.
We head on, past Townsville, through some pretty remarkable countryside - although the 100k of nothing except Gumlu and Guthalungra doesn't look any different travelling in the other direction. Finally, we reach Bowen at about 5, pass the Big Mango, and head in to town past the salt mounds again.
The Horseshoe Bay Caravan Park has one unit left. It's a bit grim, and as we're spoiled by a week sleeping in comfortable beds, we pass up the offer. I guess we can afford to be picky just once in a while. We wander round a few other places, and find the Coral Bay Park has got a cabin for 109 bucks for the 5 of us. It's a little cramped, but it'll do us well. We ramble down to the Horseshoe Bay Cafe for dinner. They're busy tonight, so we're sat outside, and it takes a while; the menu is over-elaborate for my tastes, but the food is good when it turns up. Back at the cabin, we attack the VB - or at least I do; the others being occasionally rather lightweight on that front.
Monday 9th
Though it's hot and sunny again, there was actually quite a chill last night - first time we've felt that for a while. Down at Horseshoe Bay, it's a spectacular morning, and we find ourselves wishing, again, that we could stay a while longer. But we can still spare an hour or so; we climb over the rocks round the headland, looking back northwards towards Bowen in the distance, and marvel at the yellow of the Kapok flowers against the intense blue sky. The cliffs, the vegetation, and the distant islands all have a Mediterranean feel, reminding me of the Greek Ionian islands, but the intensity of the water's colour surpasses even the wine-dark sea of Odysseus. We stop to have a chat with some of the locals - mostly retired long-term holidaymakers, in fact. The Bay, netted as it is against stingers and such, is a safe place to swim, and is extremely popular.
On we go, and head on down the highway, stopping at Mackay for food, and Clairview again for another photo-op. We're seeing it in full sun this time, instead of dusk or incipient rain, and what's more, the tide is way way out, so it looks completely different. Later, we crawl in to Yeppoon about 5, tired."A handful of quiet streets", the Rough Guide says. Evidently, it's Yeppoon, North Dakota they're talking about; certainly no such description applies to this Yeppoon. We schlep round a few places, end up at the Gum Nut Glen park, and get a (fairly odd) cabin, for 85 bucks. Can't be bad.
Can't be terribly bloody good, either. Perhaps if we'd paid the other 15 bucks or so, we might have got rooms whose walls go all the way to the ceiling; as it is, they stop about a foot short, so the effect is more cubicle than bedroom. The arrangement also means that a light on in one of the rooms illuminates all the others. Bizarre.
We have a cup of tea, and scour the collection of leaflets and brochures for somewhere to eat. The pizza restaurant seems a likely candidate, so Pete, Claire and I head off in to town - James and Rowena seem not to want much, so we leave them to their own devices.
In town, the news is not good. The pizza restaurant closed years ago, so we're told by a girl pushing a broom disconsolately round the building, and it's now a particularly uninviting pub. On we go round the corner into the main street. Ye Gods! It's Blackfield-on-Sea, (anyone who has ever been to Blackfield will understand), on a large scale, and unpleasantly feral after dark. We stick together, hit the late supermarket for some brekkie supplies, grab some pizzas from Domino's (6 bucks the lot), and scarper back to the cabin."A handful of quiet streets", my arse.
Back in the cabin, it's difficult to know what to do fruitfully, once we've eaten the pizzas, and grumbled about how horrible Yeppoon is. Nothing, seems to be the most obvious answer. The others drift off towards bed. I watch TV with the sound down for as long as I can stand - not very long - then open a beer or two, wander outside to smoke occasionally, and read (I'm still wading through Steinbeck's 'Log from the Sea of Cortez'), until eventually I give up, send a text message home, and go to bed myself. Bed might be too strong a word for it; I've drawn the short straw, and got a sofa bed device.
It's cold.
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