Wednesday
18th August ... today we took a cruise (left) in a little 17 tonne, 47 year old
boat along the Burnett River from Bundaberg Port to the mouth of the river
(almost to Burnett Heads). The skipper was a wealth of information but he didn't
sell ice-cream on board .. what sort of cruise is this?
One of the sights was a sugar storage shed (right) and, believe it or not, that shed can hold ONE MILLION TONNES of sugar. I wonder where it would be stored if we all cut down our sugar intake ?
Thursday 19th August ... We visited Elliott Heads (above) and were surprised by the changes to the beach just south of the caravan park. It is now a vast sand flat and the water is crystal clear. It is so attractive that we have decided to stay here again as soon as possible. At low tide it looks as though it would be easy to walk out to the tiny island in the pictures centre. Please .. no comments about my failure to stitch photos together. Your browser obviously needs to be "full screen mode".
Saturday
21st August ... We arrived at Coolum (left) and this means we are getting close to the
end of our trip. This is a magic place, like Elliot Heads, but much more
commercially advanced (Coolum has several ice-cream parlors). The beach is at
least as good as Bondi - but the new management at the caravan park has some
odd ideas, like $30 for a key deposit! Maybe the grey nomads have been
collecting keys as souvenirs?
The elections show clearly that 50% of us are stupid and 50% are not! ... ... you may be wondering which half you are in, ha ha ha.
My long wire antenna is working brilliantly - but in the wrong directions! I could barely hear Frank last - but the American and European station are strong. We get more and more people recognizing us because of the antennas on our caravan. Grey nomads often approach us and ask if we were at [a caravan park] last year or last month .. etc because they remember the antennas.
Monday
23rd August ... We drove to Noosa (above) to see how much it has changed since
our last visit and found it hard to believe that it was the same place.
Admittedly it was 20 years ago when we last saw Noosa, but I couldn't recognize
ANYTHING - nothing looked familiar at all. The part we walked around appeared to
be the CBD and it is now a busy, commercialised, place with all the expensive
labels that you might expect to see in London or Paris - but for all I know,
they could all be cheap Chinese imitations!
Am I improving my "photo stitching"? (above)
Connie is in training to become a model (left).
Friday
27th August. Coolum caravan park is home to this strange six legged bird
(right). Wow! can he run.
When we took a drive to Mooloolaba, I was struck by the population density (left).
Saturday
28th ... The drive from Coolum to Helensvale took us past Wild Horse Mountain.
From the motorway, I could see a road running up to the lookout, so we took the
side road and headed for the lookout. Shock! Horror! the road was closed with
gates 700 meters from the lookout and we had to walk to the top. I could not
believe how steep the walk to the top was. The famous Glasshouse mountains
(left) will give you a feeling for it.
After setting up camp at Helensvale (Gold Coast Holiday Park & Motel) and having an ice cream, we headed off for a look at the beaches along the Gold Coast. The beaches were ok - but the traffic shook my brain to the core. I'm not used to this!
During
our tour of the nearby beaches we even saw a wedding at the waters edge (left).
That must have been a difficult exercise!
A tour of the canals came next with a running commentary on "who owns all these multi million dollar mansions" (right).
I was more interested in how they got the millions.
The
show called "Australian Outback Spectacular" came highly recommended - and they
were right. It included a live show in a sawdust filled arena, backed up with a
huge movie screen, lots of lights, noise, and flashy (very clever) horsemanship,
some Aussie history, and a pretty good steak and beer - even ICE-CREAM.
Unfortunately, cameras were not allowed.
Wednesday
1st September. We took a "short cut" to get to Tamworth and I saw an old
familiar road sign that I haven't seen for many years (left). I also saw the
familiar outback letterboxes that come in every shape, size and color you can
imagine (right).
Of course, once we left Tamworth, It was just a matter of time before we reversed into our driveway and climbed back into the caravan for a sleep on Thursday night - in our own driveway! We'll unpack the caravan in the morning zzz zzz zzz
Total distance travelled =10,202 kilometers.
Used 1987 litres of diesel.
Cost of diesel $2,621
Cost to travel 1,000 kilometers = $268.68
Litres per 100klm = 20.18
Kilometers per litre = 5.1 (yeah, I dunno either)
Range per tank (138 litres) = 704 km