Sydney to Cairns

Greetings,
first of all, our apologies for the number of emails you may have been receiving, I think I have fixed it now.

Friday 30 June
Off we go, not as early as we would have liked but off anyway. It has all been a bit of a rush job, with the house renovations and our leaving partytaking up plenty of our time. Just to clarify, that is a plunger stuck on Derek's head, not a nasty zit. The first day on the road finds us in Port Macquarie for the night, and the undoubted highlite for mine was the local lounge singer at WestPort Bowling Club handing Graz the mic for some doo-wop assistance. Ride, Sally Ride indeed. Saturday was special in that we actually passed the place where fun lives. I was surprised to find that it lives at The Ginger Factory, but there you go. Also if you are up this way you would be fool to miss the Super Bee, where they not only have honey tasting (it tastes quite sweet) but also a bee-keeping demonstration. We arrive in Brisbane which would be home for the next few days, staying with Graz's parents.

Thursday 6 July
We leave the comfort of Brisbane (thanks Joe and Loretta) and head north, stopping for the evening at Lake Monduran, which is supposed to have some pretty big stocked barra. Maybe on the way back.

Friday 7 July
A quite early start (for us) see's us end up for the night at Camila Beach, a nice free camp right on (you guessed it) Camila Beach. Today's highlites include- passing the famous SugarResearch Institute, Graz looking a brush turkey in the eye as she takes an evening wee, and the t-bone steaks I cooked over the fire.

Saturday 8 July
Bowen is a toilet. No mangoes, no nuthin'. Good fish and chips but. Against all advice and our better judgement we chose to stop for the night at Saunders Beach, just beyond Townsville. I wanted to stay within tv range so I could watch the Wallabies take a beating. Top idea.

Sunday 9 July
Cairns is our destination, but on the way we drive through Innisfail, still pretty messed up from that cyclone. The mountains look like they have had a bad wax job.Cairns will be home for the next 2 days as we restock and buy tyres and such. Tuesday we are heading for Port Douglas then the cape. The word on the street is that the road up the cape is in pretty good condition...we'll see. We may be able to update again when we get to Weipa.

later,
brad and graz