Airlie Beach

Friday, 6th September

After enjoying our private facilities overnight (well, we did continue to use our own shower), we were actually on the road by 8.00 am.  This probably had more to do with the fact that we didn’t need to unhitch yesterday and only had to raise the jacks (yes, we do lower them even for one night stays) and remove the jockey wheel.  Our journey to Airlie Beach was calculated to take only three and a quarter hours.

 Yesterday’s rain had disappeared but it forgot to take the wind with it!  We had strong, non-stop headwinds all the way from Townsville to Airlie Beach.  We also encountered many, many road works between Townsville and Home Hill, and these, combined with the wind, extended our travel time by an hour.  It was a very hard slog, even if the distance wasn’t overly long.  Our first stop of the morning was outside the Ayr cemetery (always somewhere to park at cemeteries) and from the large number of mausoleums, ornate graves and names, it would appear that Ayr once had a very large Italian population.

 The first part of the journey was past cane fields and mango orchards, these then gave way to dry and arid cattle country, with a small patch of produce farming – melons and capsicums – to break the monotony.  Bowen, of course, had plenty of tomatoes about ready to pick – and more mangoes.  We had another break at Bowen, discovering we had chosen, inadvertently, a turtle breeding beach.  Unfortunately, we were a little early in the season for breeding turtles.

 We are staying overnight at the Big4 Adventure Whitsunday Resort, which is a gorgeous tropical park with large sites separated by palms and gardens.  We had just set up when the whistling ducks came to visit – and leave numerous calling cards.  The caravan park is very, very nice with very, very nice amenities, but is also very, very expensive!