Almost a Full Circle

Tuesday 12th August.

An enterprising guy with a mobile coffee and snacks van sets himself at the entrance to this rest area each morning, mainly catering to the passing motorist. However as a special treat I was up early and walked across to get a couple of cappuccino's and bring them back to Gail who was now up and showered. Travel today was a very mixed bag as we first headed east to Bundaberg and a visit to the Bundaberg Distillery. So we are literally on the east coast having traversed the entire west to east of Queensland over the past three weeks or so.

From Bundaberg it was then south to Childers, location of the disastrous back packers hotel fire some years back where a number of overseas back packers lost their lives in the ill equipt converted hotel. Our track then took us south west via Biggenden then back onto the Burnett Highway and north west via Gayndah, Mundubbera to Eidsvold. We had previously stayed at a great camp area on the Burnett River so this was our intended stop for tonight. However upon arrival we discovered that this area is now controlled by the Queensland National Parks who had introduced a fee for camping here. This in itself is not a problem for us however they have made it impossible to register and pay for the casual traveller. The only way to obtain a permit to camp is to either phone a 9 to 4:30pm phone number or apply on the Internet. OK that's reasonable except that there is no mobile coverage in this area. Further there is no facility in the nearby town of Eidsvold (6 km) to make payment the next day. A very large warning sign advising that there is a $1500 fine was all that we needed to decide they could jam this spot, so we drove north another 15 km's to another area known as Ceratodus. It was now almost dark so we were fortunate to be able to find a spot in the overcrowded rest area. I wonder why the last place was empty and this one has in excess of 20 other vans and Motorhomes.

If it seems as though we have come almost the full circle from where we were last Saturday, then that is exactly the situation. Mind you though we have seem some great scenery and routes we have not been on previously. A huge travel day in terms of distance covered; 327 km's.