Quality Hotel Ocean International Mackay

After a month of work and a week with family in Lakes Entrance, Vic, we are now ready and waiting to be on our way again. Two flights to go and we will be back in the bus, at Karl and Kate's place in Mackay, tomorrow will be time to pick up the Pups and give Rocky a well deserved service and a bit of a tune up before we start making our way South once again....<br><br>Stay Tuned.

... drove past the pub that sells the famed Pinnacle Pies with full intentions to stop there on the way back. At 9am it was far too early for a pint, even for Greg.<br><br>We did however stop in Eungella for a coffee at morning tea. We first tried Susanne&#8217;s Magical tranquil Garden and hideaway cafe, which sounded great, but as we arrived and saw a sign advising potential customers that the owner reserved the right to refuse entry - the alarm bells started ringing.<br ...

Hi everyone, (hope you're still with us), we have spent the past 2 nights in Mackay, a very busy town, with over 160,000 people in and around town. Although sugar is still a very major product for the area, mining is also very big here too.  We arrived on Saturday just before lunch (only had 200 klms to travel) so we headed off to our fav`hotel in Eimeo. This pub is perched on top of a seaside cliff with almost 360 degrees of scenery. It truely needs to be seen to get the real ...

... platypus viewing platform over the river is, and which is about central to all the potential walks. Unfortunately, I was under my own steam, and alone, so I decided to skip the afternoon of walking round the park that I had planned, because I didn't especially want to spend the evening walking back (there could well be something less cute than platypi around here, and even they're poisonous, for Christ's sake) and just instead do a short 3km circuit ...

... Confirming that a cyclone is the same thing as a hurricane helped explain the "expected to strengthen to a category 3 or 4 storm" comment we heard on the radio. We were a little annoyed because we had been told that if we hurried north we could still catch the end of cyclone season. We had, in fact, dawdled through the redneck outback of Queensland looking at cattle and dirt (and rednecks) and more dirt; so, according to our plan, Cairns was ...

Our sailing trip got cancelled so we had a few days to play with around Mackay. So, we hired a car and drove inland to the Eungella National Park. It's a bit off the beaten track for most travellers, but it was handy for us and we spent a few days looking for the elusive little platypus, walking around in the rainforest, diving into rock pools and generally kicking back. The place has very few settlements and we put our tent up for a couple of nights at Wozza's ...

... the mining of coal that is exported to China. The wages for working in the mines are very lucrative, so the area has many highly paid tradespeople with not much to do other than drink, unfortunately, and the pubs are always busy, from early morning on. There are a lot of Aborigines in this area as well, and it's been interesting to be exposed more to their culture, and a bit sad as well. When Europeans came to Australia, they slaughtered over 1 million ...

... emergency, we have a bag packed and ready to grab with all the essentials (e.g. laptop, passports, cameras, medicine, notebook with booking details, etc.). Ryan thinks I'm being paranoid, but rather be prepared than sorry. We can always buy clothes and toiletries again. The upside is that our room is the only room in the motel which is not completely flooded (yet). We also have enough food with us for breakfast and lunch. We still have electricity and might be able to ...

... I must admit I was a little disappointed with Bi-Lo I might as well have been in Coles - a bit of a let down. We finally got back to Seaforth at about 7pm and had a bbq for dinner. Stephen plugged the Waeco into power at about 9pm as the powerpoint is in the bbq shed and everyone had gone to bed and we would not need to worry about it again until morning - or so we thought. Stephen checked it about ½ an hour ...