Wharf street

 We are staying at the marina, very small caravan park.

Taken from our site

Early morning rowers go by and fishing pelicans

And an Egret.

Not much shade but we move our chairs around. Today being Saturday, we have the steam train going on the tracks about 6 metres away from the van.

It is an easy walk into the cbd from here.

Went to parkrun this morning, new post and by about a minute.

Maryborough

 Mary Poppins town. P L Travers who wrote it came from Maryborough.

Not unusual to see Mary 9n the side of the street

Decided that I like murals and there are plenty here

Umbrellas

And another

More

Bundaberg

 We got there in time for lunch at the botanical Gardens. Very nice walk through.

Comfy chairs outside the Cafe in the grounds.

A very large lady bug about four times as big as usual.

Scenic train in the grounds

Part of the Chinese gardens

Entrance to the Chinese Gardens, the Japanese Gardens were just across the road

An eel in the lake.

Mt Larcom

 Nice quiet park even though it is on the side of the Bruce Highway. It is built in tiers around the amenities, we were on the third tier.

The only caravan park that I know that has chairs and a table for each side.

I did have a photo but its not showing up.

The next tier down just over the side, a truck and enclosed trailer pulled up. Inside they had a helicopter drove that they put together. It was about four feet long.

Pt Alma

 We have stayed at Mt Larcon park before and it was a short day only 180ks so we took a detour to Port Alma.

No idea what was there but apparently it is a salt mine. Which is ridiculous as salt is not mined but there you are.

Mountains of salt

We stopped at a salt flat because....

There was a cache called  Harold Holt in salt. It stated that the cache was not difficult to find but discovering how to sign the log could take some time.

It was a yellow container tied to a stumpy tree. There were bolts inside that needed to be pushed up hard so the inner container came out.

Clairview and Marlborough

 Leaving Mackay, we missed the servo that we wanted to stop at and continued on to Clairview. Strange little place lots of houses but nothing else except a community centre advertising tea and coffee plus scones jam and cream.

I think it's like an op shop just off the highway, a service road for about five or six kilometres. The community centre was at the end of the service road.

We had coffee and the last of their scones, we were sitting outside with Lucy when one of the workers who brought out our coffees suggested we sit and watch the water.

Sea was a long way out, beautiful colour though and tide was coming in.

Mural on their wall.

Community building.

We continued on to Marlborough, the caravan was right along side of the highway so very noisy until about 10.30pm and traffic got going again about 6am

They had goats and chicken on the edge of the park.

It was a pick your own spot. 

Mackay

 This has been our spot for five nights. I visited the Riverside markets on Thursday afternoon, it was advertised on our caravan park info. The markets run from 3pm to 7pm.

I picked up some dumplings, like in China and some goat meat, that was already frozen so it will go home for a goat curry.

We have been out caching, lots here.

Friday was grocery shopping, yesterday was parkrun through the botanical Gardens and washing day. Today we took Lucy to an off leash beach, she had a ball running through the waves and tearing up the sand. It was a cool day so very few people there.

Had to grab a jumper this afternoon, temps only got to 22 and there was a wind.

Breakwater

Painted water tower

Wall with the towns happenings

Parkrun

Sculpture in the botanical Gardens. Seven frogs and a platypus all made from recycled metal bits.

 

Rockhampton and Yeppoon

 As we couldn't get into Bowen caravan park, I suggested that we have two nights in Rocky. We took the opportunity to spend the day in Yepoon, not sure if it has two p's or only one.

There is a great ad from years ago and the punch line was "and it blew a ruddy great hole in a tarana" d9nt know what the ad was for but most people our age relate to Yepoon by that ad. Tarana being a small Holden car, popular at the time. 

Yepoon was bigger than I expected with nice scenic views.

One of the lookouts we visited

Emu Park just south had a great military avenue

We walked up the board walkK to see the singing ship, no other info on it

Bit errie seeing these dotted around just up from the walkway

The poppies, red for humans and purple for animals in conflict

These were also dotted around in the park.

Monto

 We stayed the night here at a caravan park, first night was at a showgrounds.

Our adventure lab took us to the old railway station, there is still a train once a day and the area did have caravanners staying in the grounds

Had to go to a weir, it was a beautiful spot. Lucky wanted to go down to the water 

And a painted cow, not sure why.

We had coffee at Biloela, pronounced bil o wheels.

Lunch at Mount Morgan boy was that hilly. Understandable with a name like that but either side of the main road was a large hill to climb for other shopping.

Both those places we had not visited before, they are mining towns.

Gayndah

 Morning tea stop. A large orange was at the coffee shop. Very smart of the owner/farmer who grew oranges, he built a roadside coffee shop which was proving very popular.

This was the little guy at the entrance to the car park. The big orange is the other side and held information about the place and the town.

Later we drove to a cemetery and this guy was near the entrance, he was real. I was only a pace or two away when I saw him and stepped to take a photo. I gave him a wide berth when I came back. He didn't move a muscle except his head. 

Jockey and horse in town.

Nanago

 Another adventure lab up the road, 20 or 22 ks, this was to find the murals.

First one beat us, double barrelled question and we can't seem to get it right.

This was the one that frustrated us, poem on the wall. Question, who wrote it, google tells me banjo Patterson, an famous Aussie poetry. Second part what does the mural depict.  It's called mustering and so is the poem. 

Bullock team hauling logs.

Two kms walk to find all these, then off to Goomeri showgrounds for the night.

A sudden trip north.

 Finally all Warren's apts are over and he has a date for his op so we decided to go away for a few days. It was always in the plan but had been postponed.

Warren had volunteered for parkrun so we left after that getting away by 10am.

First stop was Blackbutt, Warren needed to give his butt a rest, so lovely bakery there we know. No carrot cake this time, it still looked as good but I had to give it a miss. Sausage roll was good though, Warren had a pig sty pie which comprised of bacon egg ham and roast pork with maple syrup.

Next stop was Yarraman for a sculpture walk around town. Yarraman is on the way west for us and don't know how many times we have been through there but didn't know anything about the art.

Two men sawing a huge log, there was also an Eagle of top of a pub, a flamingo near the post office and a horse. It was a bit of a drag up the hill to the horse, good going down again.

Friday was a caching day

 Power was also off from 9am till 3pm.

We went south to finish the painted water towers.

These were quite spread out with one being close to home, one in Redcliffe and one on Bribie Island.

In front of the water towers were several of these done up as military figures.

Then there was the north's watering holes. Five taverns within a twenty kms area.

This flowering tree was in the car park, there were several trees in various stages of losing their blooms. 

At the last tavern, it was time for lunch. We shared two entrees, spring rolls and kebabs. 

Grocery shopping then home just as the power was restored.  

 

The Bao Place

 Sheridan had eaten here before and said we would go there before catching the flight home. The restaurant's name was just that.

I wondered if they would be open on a Sunday night, yep they were.

We both went for three mixed, I had crispy chicken, tertiary chicken and pulled pork. There was some salad then the meat of top. Very filling without that stuffed feeling.

Good choice, even my dietitian approved as I saw him the next day and he asked what my meals were like.