Sarina

Monday, 3rd September 2012


Please be assured that there are definitely midgies at Airlie Beach. I’m sure they must be a different variety, because they caused a tremendous reaction to the sensitive one of us.

The nights have now turned rather chilly – time to find the extra blanket, the warm dressing gown and woolly slippers. However, after the sun came up this morning, the temperature very quickly rose to a pleasant 24 degrees. Before we left Airlie Beach, Cat discovered a couple of feral animals trying to hide in a palm tree. Driving out of the site wasn’t anywhere near as traumatic is driving on to the site, but we did get up close and personal with another smallish palm (don’t think we were the first either, by the marks on the trunk).

We only had a 200 km drive to Sarina today; it became a fairly slow drive as most of the highway was subject to roadworks and if there weren’t any roadworks, then the road was in rather poor condition. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. At one of our temporary halts, we did notice one of the road workers was casually holding, by the head, a red bellied black snake approximately two metres long. Not sure if the snake was dead and being moved by the man or else it was well and truly alive and just getting a cuddle!

We are staying at Sarina Palms Caravan Village which is a small caravan park on a corner without any fence. We are right on the street, so security would be a bit of an issue if we were staying long than one night (no worry about chairs, table, etc under the awning). The site is on a bit of a slope and we could not lower the front of the caravan enough to make the floor level. Of course, guess who will be sleeping on the lower side of the bed??? The lady who owns(?)/runs the place was very forthright (and a lady of few words) about what we could and couldn’t do. We were quite happy to take up her “suggestion” to visit Sarina Beach and have a look at Hay Point coal loading facility. This facility is one of the largest in the world and the longer jetty is 3.85 kms long. There was also a sign at the public viewing point which I considered quite unnecessary!