Smugglers and Customs Officers at the Whitsundays - 1st August 2012

Space is critical when travelling with the two bikes and a trailer, so for some time I have been the Smuggler. When we pack up to leave every spare cubic centimetre of space is precious. I realized I was wasting a lot of space inside the camp table when it is folded in half for storage in the trailer. Now I pack as much of our foodstuff as possible inside, it is amazing how much fits in there. On setup while I go about pegging down the tent Trish is unpacking the rest, including the table. She now becomes the Customs Officer who searches for the goods that the Smuggler has stashed away. Now that we are in the Whitsunday Islands at Airlie Beach I thought it was appropriate to talk about Smugglers and Customs officers.

We were a bit apprehensive leaving Mackay on what looked like being an "easy trip" of 146km. As a couple of our recent so called "easy trips" had turned bad, as with the lost pannier day. It looks like all our weather predicting has paid off and we are in for a string of beautiful fine days. We needn't have worried as all went well and the scenery between Mackay and Airlie Beach was outstanding and even the notoriously bad Queensland roads were great. I even got to see my first cane train. The sugar cane harvesting was way behind schedule due to all the wet weather. They couldn't get the machinery in to harvest. All the sugar mills had shut down waiting for finer weather. All Trish's great research into caravan parks had paid off once again; as we set up camp across the road from the beach and views of the Whitsunday Islands and a great shopping centre 500m up the road. It is a pain to have to suit up and put helmets on to get food so we like to camp where we can park up the bikes and walk everywhere.

Smuggler Dave