Back on the Bruce

We’re back on the road again and have spent the last five days skirting on and off the Bruce Highway heading from Brisbane up to Cairns. So state/territory number 5 in Australia and it will be our final one on this trip as our visas run out on 3rd June. So we’re making the most of it and dropping our van off on the 2nd and then flying to New Zealand (not that flights are booked yet in true Cramanda style!).

We decided not to get another Wicked van as our one in WA got nicknamed ‘Shitbox’, so we stepped up a notch and got a Hippie Camper instead – not much more expensive and infinitely nicer!

We picked the van up in Brisbane after staying with Chris’ friend and wife for a couple of nights whilst we saw the sights of Brisbane. From Brisbane we headed North and visited another of Chris’ ex-colleagues in Bribie Island – a sand island about 2 hours north of Brissie. Bribie is where the rich people have their beach/sailing houses and where people go to retire. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t too great so we didn’t really get to experience the beachy lifestyle but we did have a lovely lunch in their amazing waterfront house. We drove a couple of hundred more km to Marrochydore where we spent a night on a beachfront campsite. Needn’t have been by the beach as it chucked it down with rain all night and we woke to gloomy skies – pretty bad storms were passing over southern Queensland so we decided to press on north via Noosa and up to Hervey Bay. We had planned to do a trip over to Fraser Island from Hervey Bay, but again weather was not on our side so we decided to save it for another trip as trips are pretty pricey and it’s all about the landscapes.

We left the eucalyptus behind and headed into miles and miles of endless sugar cane fields. But what does sugar make? Rum. :-) We visited the rum distillery in Bundaberg a few hours North of Hervey Bay. It was a great little tour around the distillery sniffing the molasses and alcoholic fumes. And we got two tasters included – we didn’t have time to eat lunch before the tour so I was a bit tipsy after two drinks! Post-rum sandwiches in the van solved that though!

We drove through more sugar cane rattling over numerous cane train crossings and now and again glimpsing the ocean and passing over wide sandy banked rivers. We spent the night and a campsite overlooking Lake Awooga, near Gladstone. We were visted by five kookaburras eating ham put out by our campsite neighbour – we’d not seen them in the wild before so we got a bit over excited. And then we saw a wild wallaby munching grass by the side of the road in the morning. Cheeky wildlife tour of central Queensland :-)

We got back on the Bruce and continued north to Rockhampton where we re-supplied the fridge (yep fridge not eski – we don’t have to fish our food from half melted ice every day on this trip - woo hoo!). We had lunch at the botanical gardens where there was a small zoo (free entry which is a winner with us right now!). There were a few kangaroos, wallabies, a dingo and a few koalas lolling around in low trees having a snooze.

We did our longest stint on the Bruce so far that afternoon – we usually take the ‘scenic’ route which has almost doubled our driving distance so far but makes things lots more interesting. We spent the night in a free (woop!) camping area right next to the beach in a tiny village called Clairview. The sunset was amazing and we we were treated to a lightning storm out at sea which went on almost all night. Chris was a very happy bunny as there were spots to have a fire so he sat by the fire sipping Bundy rum from his new Bundy hipflask all evening :-)

We then drove on to Airlie Beach, the gateway to the Whitsundays, and the very helpful campsite lady helped us pick our sailing trip for the next day. We booked a two day two night package on a 50ft ex-racing yacht called Mandrake.

We set sail at lunchtime on Saturday after supplying up with red wine in a box (not goon I must add) and snacks. The weather was perfect and we sailed for about 3 hours across a millpond-like ocean and spotted a quite large shark in our wake – eek! We spent the night in a small bay of Whitsunday Island and spent the evening chatting to our ship-mates and drinking wine under a star filled sky. We set off for Whitehaven beach after a 7am turtle-spotting brekkie. The early start meant we were amongst the first up on the lookout and then on the beach. The sand on Whitehaven is the finest in the world and is white white white. Which makes for some pretty amazing views:

We had a couple of hours on the island and had a good long swim in the turquoise sea. It is coming to the end of jellyfish season, so the boat company rented us stinger suits so we could look like complete numpties but not get stung:

We sailed to a bay of Border Island for some post lunch snorkelling. There was some nice coral and the usual tropical fish, but it was no Borneo… We then sailed for a few more hours on some pretty choppy water and with the sails fully up meaning the boat was leaning around 45 degrees which makes it quite tricky to not slip off! We managed not to lose anyone and we anchored up in a bay with only one other boat in sight. We jumped in the tender and headed to the beach for an evening campfire and marshmallow cooking before dinner. Chris finally had his fire on the beach after 7 months of waiting! Our boat is the only one with permission from the National Park to have a fire so we felt pretty jammy :-)

We returned to Airlie around 10am this morning over a very choppy sea and we sprayed all over every time we hit a wave – proper sailing! After having well needed showers back, we set off on the road again and have made it to a National Park campsite just outside Townsville complete with turkeys and wallabies!