Jo’s roadtrip blog
I have had to keep notes about our road trip in a small orange book as for the 10 days in our very compact Jucy camper we were largely without internet access or the ability to charge an electrical item. It would be exaggerating to say we went “bush” for the roadtrip but it was certainly basic and at times a bit intense. So this blog is my attempt to summarise our 10 days on the road.
We started off in Brisbane excited and pleased with our lime and purple camper with the 40spin up girl smiling on the side. It was a love affair that was soon to deteriorate when we found our inside table only worked if someone held it up with their foot and that the fridge only worked on “freeze” or “off.” The last straw came one night when it froze our wine. Oliver had to sleep sideways to fit in the bed inside the camper (for a Pugh this was strange experience being too big for a bed!) heaven knows how taller people might have coped)and the children squabbled nightly over their shared double duvet up on the roof. We tried various sleeping combinations; adults up, children down, mix n match but nothing really worked. The worst night was in Mackay where Oliver Tiger and I slept up top whilst Angus starfished in comfort at the bottom following another heated dispute over the duvet.
It was so dark at night in the campsites and the dark came in quickly about 6pm. This made for good stargazing. A very excited Oliver took many pictures of the upside down moon that looked like a smiley face although few came out. His best attempt is now in our photos collection of “things we saw on the road trip.” He could even see craters on the moon through his binoculars – so one very happy man peered up into the sky most evenings. Apart from stargazing there was little to do once the night came in apart from huddle in the small space in the back of the van and play cards. The kids got very fed up with rummy and whist and so we bought a card version of Monopoly which has turned out to be just as mean and ruthless as the board game. We played this late into the night (normally about 9) before collapsing into our allotted sleeping positions to sleep fitfully until woken by very noisy Australian birds each morning about 7am. This did mean that even Angus was up about this time in the morning each morning which was a most odd experience.
The driving itself was not that much fun. The van was an automatic so both Oliver and I spent a lot of time waving our left arms hopelessly looking for the gearstick and our left legs waving around looking for the clutch. The Bruce Highway that we spent most of our time on was, to our dismay, not even a dual carriageway and it was pretty scary having huge trucks thunder towards us on the opposite side of the road all day and night. The scenery was fantastic at times but also quite dull for a lot of the journey. We have seen an awful lot of sugar cane (and sugar cane train tracks). Better agricultural sights were the mango orchards, banana plantations and fields of ploughed dark red earth that were a clear indication of the part of the world we are in.
Other things we saw from our campervan windows as we travelled along were: very pointy mountains, lots of birds of prey circling overhead, lots of foodway run offs, endless creeks with names like alligator creek, 12 mile creek, 6 mile creek etc, many many dead kangaroos, 1 live kangaroo that jumped in front of the van (that we missed phew!) , a large dead cow, an overturned truck and an air ambulance. We were also lucky to encounter some of the large fibreglass items that the Aussies seem to like to construct including a mango, a crab, a wellington boot and a cassowary. We also saw a live cassowary by the side of the road. Oh yes and a large barrel of rum that houses the Bundaberg visitor centre
We did deviate from the Bruce Highway at times. Once a little too far when we took a wrong turn and ended up on a dirt track (van insurance did not cover unsealed roads) and we had to do a u-turn and find a small pub /cafe thing in a tiny place and ask for directions. I thought we had stumbled into the wild west. Oliver was so desperate for the loo that he left me to speak to the bar man whilst he used the facilities. We beat a hasty retreat once we had our information and re-traced our steps 15k down the road. Other people we met whilst stopping the van for toilet breaks included a man from Leeds who now mended refrigeration units in Cairns who was collecting a dog from Brisbane and a lady out walking her dog (along the Bruce Highway!) who wanted to chat about William and Kate because she collected spoons and had recently got one with Pippa on.
The places we visited on our roadtrip were Australia Zoo, Noosa, Tin can Bay, Bargara (Bundaberg by the sea), Mackay (briefly), Airlie beach and the Whitsundays, Townsville and Magnetic Island, Jourara Falls, Mission beach ending in Cairns. We have uploaded some photos of each in our photo sections. Oliver and I will do some separate blogs about each of these places over the next couple of days now that we have internet access again.
Jo