And so week one and a bit of the camping trip to North Queensland commenced. As you know we first stopped at Maroochydore. We had a lovely day exploring the little town of Maroochy and had even successfully erected the tent without too mush fuss. As we awoke to the sunshine the next morning people started to comment on 'the storm' and were we going to stay in the tent? 'What storm?' we said, the sky is clear blue and we carried on, on our day of fun, lying on the beach and eating ice cream. Matt bought a hand line for fishing and successfully caught his first ever fish off the beach of a little island in the middle of the towns river. We headed back to camp to settle for the evening and again people were looking at us as if we had lost our minds. Then we looked at the sky and saw the big black clouds rolling in, then the wind started to blow the little tent around and then the rain started to fall - and 30 minutes later we were located safely inside a cabin on the campsite in the safe, warm and with a TV.As the next day it looked like the storm was not going to settle we decided to give in and head back to Brisbane until the unsettled weather had passed.

The storm did last a few days and was quite severe. In Maroochy the river we had been fishing on actually broke its banks and flooded the place a day later. There are some photos of the floods and winds. We were told that if the storm had been North of the Tropic of Capricorn it would have been regarded as a Cyclone!

Anyway on a sunnier note a few days later we set off again and this time headed for Hervey Bay, where we intended to do some whale watching and 4WD on Fraser Island - however, again the storm had but a stop to this as Fraser Island was still suffering and had been closed and as the storm was out to sea - being on a boat seemed like a bad idea. So a brief look around and stay at Hervey Bay (will come back to that later) and then we powered on up to our next stop of Yeppoon.

Yeppoon is located just after Rockhampton and this is where you cross the tropic of Capricorn and things start to heat up a bit in the tropics. It's also around here where the Great Barrier Reef starts. This area is called the Capricorn Coast.

Yeppoon was another very pretty town which had lovely beaches, it's about 30 klms away from Rockhampton which is the area where a lot of the Beef (as in the meat, not sexy blokes) is produces in Australia - and I must say their beef/steak is very nice!

We had fun at Yeppoon strolling along Mulambin Beach, looking at the hundreds of little crabs. We also had a very interesting guest at the campsite , a big ol' Emu - yey some wildlife at last although it was quite tame and followed us around for bread. Also this campsite introduced is to the 'outdoor movie'. As it gets dark very early here in Queensland (about 6.30 pm at the moment) you have the outdoor movie screens on a lot of the campsites we have stayed on. Speaking of the campsites some of them have been pretty swish and with lovely pools and activities. If you want to look at some the web address is www.big4.com.au , thanks to Dee & Gary for the tip!

Whilst staying in Yepoon we popped down the road to Emu Point where we saw the 'Singing Ship', which is a memorial to Captain Cook, it was quite an interesting monument and when the wind blows it whistles through the various tubes and pipes. See photos.

We then headed further up the coast, passed Mackay (the start of the Whitsunday Coast) to our next destination of Airlie Beach - 'The gateway to the Whitsunday's Katie was particularly excited about this part after hours of looking at the gorgeous pics on the internet before we left on the internet.Airlie Beach was a great town although we decided to wait until the trip back down to do a sailing tour of the Whitsunday's (the sea was still choppy from the storms), we still hung around for a couple of days to enjoy the views. We also saw an eclipse of the moon here, whilst being in the local pub playing Keno. So we had planned to come back when the weather was more settled headed on to Townsville.

In Townsville I think the first thing we noticed was that t started to feel a lot warmer a much drier heat. We settled on a campsite just north of the town centre and spent the day looking round the laid back town. We visited Reef HQ which is a massive bit of Reef in a observatory and had our first look at the Reef and some Big Fish and Sharks!

We took a drive up to the top of Castle Hill and took in the views of Townsville at the Hynes Lookout.

The next day we headed over to Magnetic Island just off the shore of Townsville. Magnetic Island was a lovely place with some beautiful views and scenery. We caught a ferry over and hired a Mini Moke (silly little mini car thing, which had really scary brakes - but it was funny) for the day to get around. We stopped at Horsehoe Bay and took a walk to a bay, which could not be reached by Mini Moke - called Radical Bay. Ok so Katie wanted to do the walk and it did take a bit longer than anticipated to get there, but in the end Matt admitted it was worth it when we got to the other side, you will see on the photos. Magnetic Island was a great day out though and we had really started to feel the heat now. We would definitely go back to 'Maggie' as the locals call it.

We then headed to stay at a campsite on Rollingstone Beach. This was a beautiful beach really stunning although you were advised not to be careful and not go in the water as there were crocs about - we stayed safely inland! This is also where Matt discovered the COCONUT. It was like Castaway the movie, well but he had a hammer and not a ice skate and we had plenty of food and drink. The photos will amuse you. He then collected Coconuts for about a week after, although the novelty has now worn off as it seems like a bit too much hard work to get some food! Although by now Katie was starting to feel much safer about heading to some areas off the beaten track as at least Matt could provide with the Fishing and Coconut opening.

So all in all a much better week this time and we started to have some real fun. The tent was being put up at record speed and not blowing away. Katie was not scared walking to the loo in the dark anymore, we had got used to the sound of the Kookaburras waking us up, so generally all going to plan. We had seen some wildlife and lived off the fruits of the land - all very good. So we will update you on the week 2's adventures in the next couple of days.

Over and Out

M & K xxxxxxxx