Mackay

Saturday, 23 June 2012


The Swans are beginning to make Friday evenings very stressful!

We were on the road before 8.00 am today! We were also wondering just where all the lovely tropical weather had gone – threatening cloud quickly turned to drizzle and the temperature hovered between 13 and 16 degrees.

Our trip today took us through the Queensland coal fields, in fact, the whole region seems to be one huge coal mine. There are just so many mines, with new mines and/or villages being developed and constructed in a number of locations. Traffic was fairly heavy, with many trucks and even more mine vehicles. Of course, we encountered the obligatory road works in progress but weren’t held up as, being Saturday, most of the road workers were somewhere else.

The descent from the highlands to the coastal plains was a bit steep but only a couple of kilometres long. The temperature immediately rose to 24 degrees and the cotton and sorghum of the previous days was replaced by sugar cane. It is definitely starting to look and feel tropical now. TomTom directed us through Mackay to the Big 4 Mackay Marine Holiday Park. We have never found a “nice” park in Mackay, and are still looking! How this place received Big 4 accreditation is a mystery, but the owners assured us the place has improved 9000% since they bought it. It is very old and run down, full of permanents, the amenities are old (but clean), however there are three brand new front loading washing machines in the laundry. Our site is quite wide but a bit shallow – and there is a horrible, open drain beside us. We look straight across a lagoon which is on the edge of the park and is, without a doubt, full of crocodiles and snakes!!!

Mackay seems to be in a similar situation to Roma, Emerald, Clermont and the mining towns in Western Australia – all accommodation is taken up by mining companies for their employees. As we have driven around Mackay, we have found only a very limited number of the many, many motels have vacancies and the majority of cars in the car parks are mining vehicles. Standards are never going to improve when there is no competition.