Day 59 Rockhampton to Bundaberg

Rain...everywhere is rain, and not the nice little fuzzy, drizzly, sprinkly stuff, but big voluptuous drops that trickle down the neck of your shirt.  I looked at the van this morning woefully deciding that I was not going to be able to pack up hoses and power cords whilst holding an umbrella, so I resigned to the fact that I was going to get wet.  I collected all of the outside things, and packed up the beds etc, and finally got Lisa to back the car up to the van because I was just too wet to get into the car.  As I did up the last shackle, the rain eased and the sun came out.  Too bad I was already soaked through to my jocks.  That bugger Murphy needs a right good thrashing today.

Anyhow, we were hitched up and on our way out of "Rocky" which from our experience bears resemblance to our un-picturesque satellite city in the South of Perth suburbia.  I have noticed also that a bad park experience has the ability to taint the view of the town, so I will admit that Rockhampton was only a stop-over for us, and we probably didn't give the town a fair go. We didn't stop, but snapped a pic of the BIG Bull through the pouring rain as we drove out of town.

Our eyes were set on Bundaberg today which would leave us a reasonable drive tomorrow to get to Brisbane.  Reality says that it is 350km from Rockhampton to Bundaberg, which should be around 4 hours driving with a caravan in tow.  It was only 0900 when we left Rocky, so we were quietly confident of making Bundaberg in the early afternoon.  There are a lot of road works on the Bruce Hwy at the moment, and I would put the condition of the road on par with the Tanami track, except that Tanami is unsealed and is less corrugated and prone to massive potholes.

At one of the road works, we pulled up behind another caravan sporting this sticker.

Gold.

I wanted to stop in Gladstone on the way down the coast to see first hand the work going on, and what my company is involved in.  The town is based entirely around industry with Queensland's largest power plant (Coal fired...sorry greenies) and LNG plants popping up on Curtis Island like mushrooms in a pine forest mid winter.

We drove up to a lookout and everywhere you look is industry, from aluminium smelters to the new coal export terminal works that we passed on the way into town.  At least now when it gets mentioned at work, I have a minds eye picture of what is going on there.

We stayed up at the lookout for a short while.  I tried explaining to the kids that this is how Dad makes a living and what is paying for their holiday, but it is very difficult to compete with an i-phone app.

The lookout was at the top of a very steep hill (Appropriately) which I managed to get the caravan up without too much difficulty, and the rain had abated for enough time for us to have a look around Gladstone from all angles.

On the way back down from the lookout, we came upon a mob of wallabies that had sauntered onto the road for a drink.  It's nice to see native wildlife mixed in with suburbia. That the two can coexist. 

We returned to the heart of Gladstone to do a quick shop and stopped to eat some lunch and have a general breather.  We had only spent an hour here, but it was pushing towards 1300 hrs so we moved on and headed South towards Gin Gin and then onto Bundaberg. 

Lisa wasn't feeling too well, so she fell asleep, as did the kids in the back seat.  When Lisa woke, we were only 15km from Bundaberg, but she said I looked like a zombie.  I must admit, I am starting to feel the long drives more and more. 

The Bundy distillery and Bundaberg Ginger Beer barrel were both on the North side of town, so we went straight there to see if we could get a tour done.  Unfortunately the last tour of the day left at 1500hrs, and it was already 1545.  Now to my reckoning that means that we drove for 5 hours and 45 minutes to cover 350km (Allowing an hour for the stop in Gladstone.)  That is probably the best measure of how completely crap the Bruce Hwy is. 

One last BIG thing for the day was the BIG Bundy bottle out the front of the distillery.  At least that is big enough to be classed as BIG! 

The caravan park is typical Big 4 and is clean and well presented without being too expensive.  The amenities are fantastic, and the park owners are lovely and helpful people.  We have booked in for the distillery tour in the morning.  Can't wait for that one...YEEHAAA!  Today we passed 15,000 driving kilometres for the trip.  We had only calculated 22,000 total, so most of the driving would appear to be done.