Rockhampton to Carmila Beach

This morning was time to say farewell to Bruce and Kaye. It was hard to leave after having such a wonderful few days with them. One of the highlights was the arranging for us to join with them at the Leo Sayer concert last night. That is really going to stay in our minds for a long time. We even played the CD that went with the concert tickets as we traveled today and no doubt will do so again.

After we left Bruce and Kaye, we refueled the Mazda and topped up the tank on the Karavan that runs the stove and hot water heater.

It was time to have a final coffee fix at Sexie Coffee in Rockhampton. We were not disappointed. As we walked back to where we parked, we picked up a few items at the news agency we passed.

So now we rejoined the Bruce Highway. We traveled a short distance to the Caves and went in only to find that the tour was not on for a while and this would have delayed our trip, too much. So we set off again with our next stop at a Driver Reviver station north of Marlborough. This was a good opportunity to walk around and stretch legs.

After we had traveled around 230 kilometres, we arrived at Carmila. It was lunch time so we visited the small hotel for lunch. It was a reasonable meal but nowhere near the quality of recent cafes or restaurants. The owner was willing to chat and told us of the hard times she has experienced during and following the recent floods and cyclone. She told of many businesses that were unable to get assistance for flood loss and have now closed. Apparently, the Queensland Government have money that was mainly donated by the community for just this purpose but a lot have been refused any help.

After lunch we drove the short distance to Carmila Beach. We eventually found a good campsite only about 50 metres from the water, at high tide. It is a little windy but was nice in the sun. We have 2 Dutch girls camped next to us and they are easy to talk to. They are from the university city of Groningen

So it is a nice quiet evening in the Karavan with only the radio to amuse us.