Thursday, 22nd February 2018
We woke up to another day of rain! Today, it would have been my dad’s birthday – happily he must be celebrating it with more of his family now hat Hubert has joined them all in the hereafter!
However back in this world, we have a miserable campsite! Most of the campers were busy getting their gear together and move on. We did the same – had breakfast and were ready to continue our drive up north.
Our plan was to drive through the national parks covering the areas from Nooseville to Hervey Bay and stopping on the way at Maryborough – the town where the author of Mary Poppins – Pamela Lyndon Travers – used to live.
When we left the campsite, the weather seemed to be clearing up, however we were wrong – it got worse on the way and actually it wasn’t really a good idea to go through the national parks as some roads were just gravel roads! If it were a clear day, we would have had some really magnificent views of the rain forest. (It certainly was a rainforest!)
At one point our GPS directed us down a gravel road but just as we turned round a bend we could see that the road was flooded – no way we could go through this road so Gerry had no other option than to back up the van to the main road again. Serena, our GPS guide then rerouted us through Kin Kin and then onto Maryborough.
Kin Kin is a tiny hamlet in the rain forest with a country hotel, general store, and church school. It would have been idyllic on a rainless day! Pictures taken out of the van – too wet to walk around here and we really wanted to get back to normal roads again. Maryborough was only 58 km away through neatly forested roads. Timber is a great production in this area.
Again, heavy rain and I really did send up a quick prayer that we would arrive safely – and we did! Maryborough is a quaint old town – actually one of the oldest towns in Queensland and has very impressive colonial restored buildings. What was really interesting is that the traffic lights show Mary Poppins with her umbrella either standing still when red or with umbrella open flying when green.
We had a walk around here and we were lucky that it was dry!
Further on the road, it was only some 35 km to Hervey Bay where we wanted to spend a couple of day – that is if the weather would dry up. Before getting to our campsite, the Ingenia Holiday Park, we stopped at the shopping mall to get some groceries and wine. We went into the mall with dry weather but when we got out, it was raining – real torrential rain!
Anyway finally the rain ceased as quickly as it had come and we were finally on our final leg to our campsite. Enough place and although it looks really well kept with loads of palm trees and luscious green lawns, it did look somewhat miserable in the rain.
Just after 5pm, it was time to have a glass of wine together with some snacks under the canopy not far from our van and then I got dinner ready – a delicious Caesars salad with grilled chicken, anchovies, avocado and boiled egg together with toast – and of course a good glass of Pinot Grigio!
Again an early night tonight! Tomorrow, depending on the weather, we’ll decide whether we will be able to go across to Fraser island or drive further to Agnes Water and 1770.
A note this morning 23rd February – I am back in business and sending off this post today through McDonalds’ WIFI – am a happy person again as we were WIFI-less for more than 24 hours – we just couldn’t get connected at our campsite in Hervey Bay!! Ever so thankful to McDonalds (which apparently I have spelt wrongly all the time!!)
