PROSERPINE to SAINT LAWRENCE

O'Connell River Bridge -----Crocodile. on Proserpine River Bank

21/9/06. We are now at O'Connell River with a front row view of the river. There are bird's everywhere Cane Toad's come out at night from the Sugar cane Plantation's across the Highway, you always have to check your shoes every morning to see if there is a visitor in them. Not much sleep last night as there where heap's of truck's crossing the bridge and the cane cutting machines work 24 hours a day, the van park is right on the Bruce Highway so we have to expect traffic noise as a fact of life.
Up early the next morning for a drive to Airlee Beach to see the town and visit the market's. By the time we arrived the sky was clearing as it had rained all night. Airlee Beach is an impressive town with plenty of up market shops catering for Tourists and Back Packers, the Marina and Harbour are set on an incredible blue sea opposite a park and one of the largest Swimming pools we have seen. After lunch at the pub we drove up to Shute Harbour, here they charge $7.00 just to park the car, a bit of a rip off - but the views of the offshore Island's in the incredible blue Ocean has to be seen to be believed.
25/9. It is 9 years since David left us, he would of loved to here our stories of our travels, Sandra Misses him so much, to day she through a Flower in the O'Connell River in Remembrance of Dave.
26/9/06. Our Baby Kylie is 32 today -we do miss our Smiley, good on you Darling we miss and Love you - see you in December.
We drove out to Conway Beach south east of Proserpine, to check out the caravan park for a future stay, as we drove into town there was a terrible STINK it smelt like rotting fish, we enquired at the Kiosk to the stench and were told that it was Coral Spawning (Phew), this van park is very well maintained with the rented Cabins and permanent caravans all painted in cool pastel colours, we will come here at a later date - but not when the Coral is Spawning.
28/9. Went on a Crocodile Tour up the Proserpine River it was a bit of a let down as we only saw about five croc's and they were only small ones, have to wait until we get up to the Northern Territory to see the big Guys.
On arriving back at Proserpine we found our car was surrounded by motorbike's mostly Harley's, there were at least 200 of them but as luck has it they were just leaving (lucky for them), they were heading for Airlee Beach with a Police escort to meet up with another 2000 Bikers for there annual long weekend bike rally.
29/9/06. Today we packed up and left for Mackay. Mackay is a very big town with much to see and do, with a population of 80,000 it is the Sugar Capital of Australia, money also pours in from the Coal Mines in this area west of town. Other sources of income are from Cattle, Fishing, the prawning industry and tourism. We have run into some people that are on the road the same as us, we first met them back at Glennbawn Dam near Scone in NSW earlier this year, Mike and Gerri are there name's - they are very good company. Next day San and I went out to Cape Hillsbourough north east of Mackay, there is another great caravan park in the Cape Hillsbourough National Park with good shade and plenty of wild life, Kangaroos play on the beach and also in the surf, fishermen back there boats down the beach to launch them in the Sea they have no trouble even in conventional 2 w.d vehicle's.
1/10/06. Drove up to Eungella national park and Finch Hatton Gorge for the day, at the Gorge San and I went for a bush walk of about 2km - as it was to steep for her to continue we slowly walked back down the mountain, back near the car we stopped for a rest and to our surprise 2 Goanna's came out of the scrub and slowly walked about - not to worried about humans - we then drove up to Eungella, there is a dam up here that rivals Tinnaroo Dam for Barramundi Fishing, there are also red claw crayfish which can be taken in pot's or trap's and as they are Vegetarian's the will eat Banana peel's, Potatoe's, Fruit Skin's and Dog Biscuit's, and Platypus can be seen in the creek's if you are lucky. The drive up to Eungalla Nat Park is a very steep climb of about six km, at the top we stopped for a drink at the Chalet Hotel - there is a fantastic view down the Pioneer Valley towards Mackay. The Rainforest's and lakes up here make it all worthwhile for a visit - it has been a great day.
Back at camp we had Happy hour once again, with Mike & Gerri, Terry & Brenda from W.A., Pat (bloke) in a Winnebago & Bob from across the road - they are all like us out for a good time, everyone exchanged yarns and addresses - some stories were sad, funny and helpful. we also said our goodbyes as tomorrow we leave for St Lawrence.