A Little Further North To Sarina

Clairview

The nights are getting milder and last night we slept with all of the windows and doors open, protected only by security standard mesh ... security against middies and mosquitoes that is.

There were only about six occupancies in the small caravan park which is part of the The Caves facilities, whilst the vast majority of humans in residence were the sixty Year three kids staying over as part of their excursion. In all truth, their behaviour was exemplary and we heard nothing of them after about 8:30pm.

Sue and I swapped some funny excursion stories but I'd have to agree her description of being on board the vessel to take them on a harbour cruise in Sydney with half the excursion group and trying to convince the skipper to wait for the other half was a the winner, especially the code to the story of finally seeing the remainder running like a frantic swarm of bobby red hats from the opera house, including one of the male aides who was pushing a wheelchair-bound child along as fast as the friction in the axles would allow.

We were up with the sun but as we are never in a hurry, we were again the last to leave the campsite as dawdling along to absolutely no timetable is part of the charm for us. We were on the road by 9:00am which was early enough as our route today was less than 300 kilometres long.

The first sign on this trip that we a long way from capital cities came with the sighting of our first roadhouse, at Malborough, which was soon followed by another with their tell-tale petrol pumps, restaurants (a generous description) and the showers and accommodation (cabins, motel and/or camping grounds).

Our route would take us inland of the Warginburra and Torilla Peninsulas and most of it wove through tall mountains on first one side of the Bruce Highway and then the other and on a few occasions, on both. Tall iron barks seemed the dominant trees in the forests that thickened as we drove through the morning. The Boomers, Broadsound and Connors Ranges were our constant companions to the west whilst individual domes like Charlie Peak, Conical Mountain and Mt O'Connell were distant travelling companions to the east.

Not far from Clairview, where we had returned from hinterland and were once again on the coastal plain, we were just about run off the road by an oncoming police escort vehicle, urging us to get off the road where there was no space to. Behind him, hidden by a bend as he was bearing down on us head to head, came a huge low loader with an even huger load. It was a big green bucket scoop used in mining and its presence explained my we had been able to pass an another low loader heading in our direction, just kilometres earlier, as it snugged into the bulge in the road caused by a crossroads.

Bruce & Beryl, CWA shop at Clairview

We left the Bruce for the short diversion of Clairview. Hoping to find an ocean view for morning team we discovered so much more and in the course met the delightful Barry and Beryl, who were offering up mugs of tea for $1.50 and cakes and slice for not much more. They were also presiding over crafts and old books and used clothing for sale from the local WAGS group (Womens Action Group) - a similar organisation to the CWA. The tea was good but the stories were better including Beryl's most recent escapade with a rat and the Wiggles bandaid which was nursing the injury. There were tales of wartime years when she was moved as a schoolgirl from Yeppoon to Emerald for safety from Japanese invasion, only to be moved again when her accommodation in Emerald was required by the American servicemen, so she moved back to Yeppoon! She also told us of the teachers at her girls boarding school entertaining American GI's in the small room that adjoined the hall while her and her schoolmates were attending to "prep" or homework. We purchased some marmalade and a few presents and were eventually on our way after a delightful diversion.

The next twenty kilomentres were full of anticipation for the homemade ice cream available at Flaggy Rock. Sue had been on desire alert after reading a brochure three days ago and as we closed in she was reeling with choices. Disappointment greeted us instead as we couldn't find the ice creamery anywhere in Flaggy Rock. Returning to the Bruce, there it was, a little further north. It wasn't until we were sitting in the right turn lane waiting for oncoming traffic to clear that we noticed the sign across the entrance, "Closed Wednesdays". We headed on.

Northwards, we travelled through Yaamba which was not only had too many vowels to be the real things but was short on ocean views and hills.

Bypassing Sarina at first, we went to Sarina Beach, 14 kilometres to the east and had lunch there. immediately behind the beach. Sue found some old wood which has to have come from an old, old boat so I now have a place for it in the car. We returned to Sarina to the oddest caravan park owner I have ever tangled with. He took us on a tour of the park, showing us all of his grassed sites, explaining that he won't let camper trailers on his grass sites because they kill the grass. He then showed us a totally impractical site for our trailer and before I had time to comment, he gave me a grassed site under the clothes line. Very, very weird!

TODAY'S PHOTOS

We went out to waste the rest of the afternoon but returned soon after as everything was either shut or the last tour was completed for the day. We have started to think we might need to change the name of the blog to the "You Should Have Been Here Yesterday Tour".

On to Mackay tomorrow.