Day 60 – Friday 17 September 2021 – 226 Km

This morning we are cleaning & packing the Karavan getting ready for departure. We put another coat of paint on a couple of the last doors & hung an internal door that was finished yesterday & dried overnight. After staying in one place over two weeks there is a lot of packing & sorting the car & the Karavan, We departed Townsville at 10.45am, it felt strange & sad leaving Will & Marlene, it was great spending time with them. We headed out on to A1 Ringroad that bypasses the majority of the Townsville suburbs. There were roadworks that slowed us down in a few places. We passed the massive army base as we left the city.

The road south is reasonably flat & we pass some poor countryside with sparse scattering of trees. Big mountains in the distance look great. As we approach Ayr the flat land is full of cane farms. The bridge over the Burdekin River just south of Ayr is a marvel of engineering. It looks very well structured & symmetrical it is an interesting structure spanning across this vast riverbed that is mainly sand. There is lots more cane farms nearly all the way to Bowen, with scattered mango plantations, but becoming more plentiful as we get closer to Bowen. There are also a lot of tomatoes growing in different stages – some ripe, some green & others just in flower.

We find our caravan park in Bowen easily, book in & set up on our site. There is a beautiful bougainvillea at the back of our van site. Lunch is next (at 3pm, but we had some snacks while driving) then a walk out the back gate of the van park & onto the very long Queens Beach. There are a number of people out kite-boarding on foiling boards, they are travelling very fast over the water. We walk as far south on the beach as we can go, stopped by rocks at another caravan park.  The tide has turned.  We walk back past the van park we are in. We turn off the beach at the surf club & admire a massive spreading fig tree that has some amazing twisted branch supports. A walk along the path through the park & we are at the gate of our van park again.  We sit outside & enjoy some cheese & bikkies with a glass of red while playing cards & then have a chat with our friends Sue & John in Canberra.  Canberra is still in lockdown, 30 new Covid cases.  A hot shower, a bite to eat, a big come down from yesterday’s feasting.  Another great day.