Well … today started out full of promise …
Up with the sun, as per usual.
Brekky was bacon and eggs, which was hardly enough fuel to prepare us for what the day held.
We thought we had plenty of time up our sleeves … wrong!
We headed out of Macona Inlet and all the way up Nara Inlet to anchor again. We wanted to see the Aboriginal Caves and artifacts in the area. Unfortunately so did about 50 backpackers from a tour.
We could barely get close to the cave. Foiled and running out of time to get the boat back to harbour we retreated.
The trip back across the Coral Sea took about 2 hours and was 2M seas again. This time we were directly across the waves the whole time which was pretty uncomfortable. Blake & Hannah got whacked with the seasickness stick a few times. There was no choice though but to make a direct heading for the harbour or we wouldn’t make it on time.
Once we got back to port, the boat had to be refuelled and we had to get all our stuff off.
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We went straight back to the van, hooked up and set off for down south. Then 20km out from Airlie Beach we remembered what we left on the boat and had to go all the way back to get it. (We still managed to leave a DVD on there after all that).
Back on the road again at about 2pm we headed for Mackay … and then Sarina … and then there was nowhere on the map really within reach to head for. 🙁 Lunch ended up being Maccas since we couldn’t really find anything else and we had no food otherwise.
So … we looked up some likely campsites and got lost trying to find the first one and ended up in a farmers cane field, much to his amusement … I blame the GPS. Turn left my arse!
Headed towards another creek that looked promising another 100km down the road only to find out that some bugger had put a prawn farm next to it (read mozzie factory) and we couldn’t stay there either lest we be eaten alive. In the time it took to decide we couldn’t stay there the kids had managed to get covered in mud, just to add some spice to the deteriorating mood.
Finally, with the sun having well and truly set we headed to a campsite that warned that we’d need to walk the last 300m of track to be sure we’d get in. At this stage I was having none of that. We were stopping there regardless. So I barreled on in to find a good dose of skinny track made of deep sand. About 500m of sand 4wding in the dark, with the van on the back and we were done. *sigh*
In the pitch black we found something that looked like a site and should be well enough off the track to not cause any trouble to anybody else that may be around. We couldn’t see any other campers, but we could see the lights of campfires and a little music, so knew there were some nearby.
We still hadn’t unpacked all the boat food and put it back into the van fridge. This was mainly due to the van fridge being at 25 degrees. Everything else was going wrong too. The engel stunk due to ‘something’ being left in it … it doesn’t take much to stink it out. This in turn stunk out the car … etc … The stink of engel guts combined with the sea smell of a batch of snorkel gear and my shoes is something you’ll just have to imagine and I shall try to forget.
So, after 340km of unplanned drive (why didn’t we just stay at Airlie Beach?) we had nearly all our clothes to wash, a van and car that needed repacking and a good wash, no food, 2 single stubbies of beer … and we were stuffed. An early night had by all.
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