Drove 750km today! No directions or maps needed as we were on the same road all day! Heading north. Rolled out of bed, walked to the front of the van grabbing a drink on the way and by 7.10am we were on the move!
We took shifts with the driving, swapping every few hours to keep the psych high. There's mostly not much to see on the drive so we had to make the most of what entertainments we could find en-route. One place early on reminded us of mom for some reason...
To keep drivers awake and alert along this stretch of road there are 'driver reviver' pull ins where free coffee is served at the weekends. We couldn't get any free drinks today, but we could play the driver trivia quiz - every couple of miles there was question, followed a short distance later by an answer!
For a while we followed alongside a railway track. Every now and then there was the excitement of an actual train going past. For entertainment and betting purposes, trains and carriages were counted. The longest was carrying coal and had 120 trucks!
We passed a lot of grassland and farm land.
At Rockhampton, we were surprised to see a big stone Cathederal. Given that most buildings are built of wood and are generally a single story, it really looked quite out of place. We pulled over to investigate and stopped for a lunch break and a quick stroll.
It's an impressive building and looked pretty new?.. There was a rock concert going on at the attached Cathederal School, which sounded good, but we still had plenty of distance to travel, so didn't investigate too far.
As soon as we showed signs of a picnic, these scavenger birds showed up looking to get their curly beaks into some of our sandwich crumbs - of which they got none!
The day rolled by pretty easily and the kilometers ticked by amidst a cab of singing, chatting, scheming and plenty of non stop coffee drinking...
Towards the end of the day we were passing though field after field of sugar cane. It was being harvested and taken away in big trucks and in a special 'cane train'.
Just before it got dark, we pulled into a free camping spot, just off the highway by a quirky Australian pub called the 'Leap Hotel'. Part out of courtesy and part out of curiosity, we finished the day with a couple of beers at the pub. It was pretty busy inside with locals and road workers. There was all sorts of memorabilia on the walls and ceilings but signs saying no photographs. The barmaid was very friendly but it didn't look like the kind of place where you'd want to upset the locals, so had our drink on the terrace and left them to their Friday night revelry.
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