3 – 4 Dec – Tannum Sands

We departed Yeppoon and cruised through Emu Park and then inland to Rockhampton where we loaded up a full tank of fuel with the cheaper prices. Rocky is huge – it must be one of the biggest populations in country Queensland. A big Vinnies shop caught our eye and we are on the hunt for Enid Blyton books – Famous Five, Secret Seven etc. The air con was great and there was a good library of books (not Enid unfortunately) which we sorted through and made a selection.

There’s not much to report on the drive from Rocky south – it’s pretty dry, dusty grazing land. We pulled into Gladstone to pick up our final school packs from the post office. Gladstone could be a nice place except for the industrial dominance with massive powerlines zig-zagging everywhere, non-stop coal trains, smelters and smoke stacks – even the river and coast is shipping terminals and huge loading structures. But, you know, jobs and growth.

We decided to try a caravan park down at Tannum Sands on the coast and found a quiet caravan park – pretty basic but the boys had a pool. After a night of lightning and distant thunder, the next afternoon actually saw a good thunderstorm roll in and a good amount of rain for about an hour – hopefully that is falling down at Deepwater and up at Eungella where the fires have really done some damage.

We’ve got the map out and google says we are only 10 hours and around 800kms from where we started out almost a year ago so the home straight is in sight if we need to cut the trip a week shorter than planned.