In the morning we visit the gemfields of Sapphire and Rubyvale before continuing west through ranges before reaching the flat outback beyond Alpha. There are many roadkills along the highway and we stop at Barcaldine to visit the Tree of Knowledge where striking shearers met in 1891 to form an alliance which eventually became the Australian Labor Party. The tree was poisoned in 2006 but is preserved beneath a huge structure of wooden wind chimes. We make it all ...

We head to Sarina for a coffee and then travel west along the railway line where we see long coal trains heading in both directions. At Clermont we find the devastating floods of 1916 (65 people killed and most of the township washed away) marked with a replica piano up a tree where it came to rest after the floods. We find room at the Lake Maraboon park near Emerald despite the school holidays and the upcoming Labour Day long weekend.

After over 2 weeks and lots of delays we finally get a call that the car is fixed. Hooray. I can now return to serious blog work after many days at Blacks Beach enjoying the waves, fishing and trips into town. We stock up ready for the trip inland tomorrow.

We move the caravan out to Blacks Beach where we are lucky to get a nice site for the start of the school holidays. This will allow Renee and the boys to have a bit of peace and quiet without us coming and going each day. Sadly we have to swap the Titanium Territory for a base 5 seat one so it's back to normal seating again.

Queensland has lots of "big" things and yes, we found Buffy, the big cane toad at Sarina. Not very photogenic but we had to take a photo for Blake with us showing off our toad divining skills. On the way back to Mackay we viewed the coal export facilities at Point Hay. In the afternoon we have a go at wakeboarding at a purpose built water park in Mackay. It operates on overhead wires a bit like spider cam at the footy. The wakeboarding was really fun even though ...