Coastal Sailing

With our return to the real world looming and now a date in which we have to be back in the big smoke of Sydney, Luke and I have had to pick up the pace and stop dawdling in tourist info centres and coffee shops and hightail it down the Queensland coast a little faster that what we may have liked (and at a pace that we just aren't used to!).

Nevertheless, even if you have just a few days in your travel itinerary, you can still see some pretty great places without having to resort to Northern Territory-style driving tactics (i.e. 500km a day).

Here's what we saw:

Tully: A little town built in the side of a rainforest covered mountain with a big gold gumboot welcoming visitors to Australia's 'wettest' town. With a sickly sweet smell bellowing out of the nearby sugar cane mill, this little town was a tad sentimental for me. Why? Because it was named after my little brother! Well, not really, but my bro does share his name with this Queensland community and Luke and I wasted quite a bit of time laughing and taking funny photos of all the places with his name 'Tully' on them.

Bowen: A town often left off many traveller's touring schedules, with most skimming through in search of the famous juicy mango, then scooting back to the Bruce Highway as fast as you can say, "Pass the napkins." But hold up and stay a while, because the beautiful Horseshoe Bay is a pretty slice of paradise that's no where near as exploited and packed as our next stop...

Airlie Beach: Perfect one day, destroyed the next (or so the hugh billboards protesting a new marina canal development warned us on the way into town). And yes, the man-made beach overlooking the Whitsunday Islands is what postcards are made of, but unfortunately for us, the rest of the place was as overused as a public toilet on New Year's Eve. Highrises, construction and buses and buses of backpackers make this place a good spot to drive into, then leave behind as you sail away on your own personal yacht to Hayman or Lindaman Island to visit your old mate Richard Branson, who has the cocktails waiting. Or...


...you could stay at the Wanderers Beach Resort in Airlie Beach instead, like we did, and experience what was hands down the most filthy, revolting and unmaintained caravan park / hotel that we have stayed at during our entire Aussie Adventure to date. Big call? Maybe, but we weren't the only ones feeling like we needed a shower after checking out of this place after just one night. This is what Luke found written on the back of one of the toilets in the guy's block.

Sarina: Just out of Mackay, we stopped at the Sugar Shed - a cool looking corrugated tin building on the edge of town near the sugar cane mill. You can take sugar mill tours here or just grab a coffee - which looked amazingly impressive and was gigantic (but tasted like a cup of skim longlife milk that had been boiled until breaking point). I had to do a swifty and pour half my bubbling brew into a nearby pot plant while the waitress lady, who confessed to being a novice when it came to using the coffee machine, wasn't looking.

Rockhampton: The beef capital of Australia, while you're in Rocky, you really should play this super fun game called "Spot the plastic cow." It's really very surprising how long the game can last, with life sized replicas of the prized Brahman, Santa Gertrudis, Braford and Droughtmaster bulls all over town.

Gladstone: Industrial but not to the point that the houses are stained red with iron ore like in Karratha, Gladstone's best kept secret is Tannum Sands. About 14km out of town, the sea side village is sweet, with bike tracks and apparently crocodiles (that we didn't know lived down this far of the coast until after we finished our 1 hour walk around the mangroves...gulp). Thanks for the well place signage, council Gladstone.

The Town of 1770: Strange name, cool place. Except that we arrived on the same day that the entire population of school children on holidays from Queensland also decided to check in. The caravan park was chaos and we witnessed two car prangs in about 20 minutes as 4WD's battled to park their huge rigs in spaces as small as President Bush's brain. Seriously, I felt for these guys!

Bargara: Another little gem, on the outskirts of Bundaberg, where instead of getting blotto on the town's famous drop - Bundaberg Rum, Luke and I hit the kilometres of bike trails on the Bargara foreshore and checked out the great ocean views. How very sensible!

Where to next? Only time will tell!

Yours in the great outdoors,

Odette