Let the Adventures begin!

Well, we are currently sat in a free camp at Babinda (approx. 60km S/W of Cairns) at the time of writing this blog up. It’s been raining for 2 days straight, which has delayed our plans a little. We don’t complain about the rain because we have been really lucky with good weather 90% of the time. So when it rains we just take it as a chill and catch up day. We are pretty well self-sufficient in all aspects so if we see rain on the radar we tend to head for a free camp so we can save our $$$ for when the sun is shining.

Wow where to start 2 months gone already? Well we started our trip off by going to Inskip for a week. This was great to kick start us into full holiday mood and also iron out any last creases with the car / caravan before we ventured too far from home. Unfortunately it was also the week Cyclone Debbie visited the East coast. No damage done and a few lessons learnt, like check the tree’s around you before you set up! (see inskip video). We did cop up to 120km winds at Inskip point so it’s good to know, there were no water leaks and that our caravan is cyclone proof haha.

From there we travelled north through Maryborough, Childers to Hervey Bay where we stayed in some random caravan park in the back streets which turned out to be quite nice. The place only had 8 powered sites available to caravans as it was predominately a backpacker hostel with lots of cabins, but unknown to us it was actually also a mini bird sanctuary. There were 3 peacocks roaming the grounds and a lot of other large bird varieties which was quite cool. After 3 nights around Hervey Bay it was time to move on, up to Bundaberg we went! There was only one thing we both wanted to see and that was the RUM factory! As we are both big bundy rum fans we couldn’t wait to do the factory tour. Rusty had a nap in the caravan while we did the tour and treated our taste-buds to some of the finer rums.

With Easter approaching, Kurtis’s parents wanted to meet up and spend some time over Easter with us and have a little getaway, so we met up with them at Agnes Waters / 1770. On the week leading up to Easter myself and Kurtis found a great camp spot at Workman’s Beach in Agnes waters. It was a decent size, close to the beach and town and had lots of walking tracks in the vicinity. We were umming and arghing whether to stay or meet Kurt’s parents a bit further north towards Gladstone. We both fell in love with the place and stayed – a total of 10 nights to be exact! The decision payed off with Kurts parents also falling in love with the spot! The highlight of our time there, would have to be when I found a $200 Pandora ring and exploring all the walking tracks.

After the Easter long weekend we said our goodbyes to the parentals and continued our journey onto Gladstone. People had told us there wasn’t much to see in Gladstone and to ‘skip it’. We decided to still go and have a look for ourselves, but yes, majority of the people were right. There wasn’t much there that interest us. We stayed at a campsite just north/west of Gladstone called Calliope River. This was also a free camp and we bumped into our new friends, Deb & Darryl and Dan & Em. We all sat around the campfire 2 nights in a row, sharing stories and having plenty of laughs. We explored the nearby historical village at Calliope (literally 2 minutes from camp) and then the next day packed up and headed off to climb Mt Larcoom!

It was a 4 hour return hike up Mt Larcoom and boy it was worth it. The sun was shining, it was a clear day and we could see for miles from the top. Highly recommend if ever in the area. Be sure to take some water and a snack with you though. Rockhampton was calling our name, we headed there next. Rockhampton actually welcome RV’s and had a great free camp spot smack bang in the middle of town. It was limited but a great base camp while we explored the neighbouring towns. On Anzac day I thought it would only be fitting that we attended the Anzac Day - main March up at Emu Park. Emu Park has a really great memorial to our troops, it’s a boardwalk along the coast with various memorials, pictures and info. It was only a small march with the locals, which made it feel that much more special. Later in the day we also took a drive up to Yeppoon for a look. Looked like a nice sleepy coastal town with lots of activities along the shore to keep the locals and tourists entertained.

Our time was up at our free spot in Rocky, so we made the decision to head WEST for a bit! There were some towns on our list we wanted to visit and the best way to start from was Rocky. First stop west was Emerald! We popped into the information centre for some info on the neighbouring towns and the must see’s while out this way. If you’re ever at the Emerald info centre be sure to walk around back and check out the largest free-standing easel + painting in the world! With fossicking in the Gemfields on Kurts list of must see’s – we headed there for a few days. We camped at a few different spots and Kurt gave fossicking and panning a red ho