Mount Morgan

We woke up with rain, as forecasted. We were prepared and had everything already packed up so we could leave early. A ‘family’ of four takes time though. Breakfast, washing, emptying toilet cassette, etc., so it was not until after paying for our fifth night and after 8.30 am that we drove from the campsite. First we wanted to see if we could get access to a wifi hotspot because although you can do a lot via the iPhone’s Internet, the speed and data quantity is limited for things like backups. The free wifi hotspots at McDonalds are a sham. We have now twice had to have a burger there, and Marjo knows how much I hate them, to try and use their free Wifi only to find that the connection quality is worse than the iPhone’s own hotspot. Perhaps we will have to try Hungry Jack’s next time ;p

We want to outrun the rain again so want to make good progress and drive up towards Rockhampton. Having heard nice things about Gladstone, and also keen to get some new bread, meat and veggies, we drive towards Gladstone, an hour away, plus 30 minutes for the bus, plus 30 for roadworks. All of Queensland seems to be under construction. There is obviously money and everywhere you see signs of roadwork. That doesn’t necessarily mean that there are actually people working there, but there is clearly been roadwork and the signs of 80 then 60 then 40 are still there.

The Queensland government loves signs. Every kilometer or two there is a sign telling you to pull over for rest or you die a horrible death. Things like “Rest or R.I.P” or “Ambulance in 40 km” or we saw a cage on the side of the road with a crashed van and motorbike intertwined as example of what can happen. At the same time they try things like trivia. We have had the question “what is the flower in the emblem of Queensland”. It took several days and hundreds of kilometers to see the answer. We’ll let you wait too 🙂

After the school holidays and up from Agnes Waters the Grey Nomads invasion has started. Where it was not often we saw caravans or campers before (apart from camp sites of course), now we see many many of them. From small utes with tents to massive rigs with slide out walls. Rest areas are congregation points and camp sites are full. They clearly know each other and seem to travel in flocks. That’s why we are looking for campsites out of the way, which makes our new book Camp sites version 6 useless as everyone seems to follow that too.

So today we went to Rockhampton and then confused everyone and went 35 kilometers inland and back (South West). A place called Mount Morgan. We now know why it is called that, after 30 minutes hairpin bends and steep inclines. The town of Mount Morgan has 100 years of gold history and a mining tour (when it doesn’t rain, which it did all day).
We arrived at the camp site, parked and decided to not even unpack dogbeds or seats. All we did was a shower, a meal, a wine and Joran & Christine’s gin with tonic and then watching the tv series ‘Bones’ on the iPad.