April 19, 20, 21, 22

We would have stayed in Airlie Beach longer but it wouldn't stop raining so we decided we better head south to the sunshine.

This is the Lagoon in downtown Airlie Beach.  Most of the Northern Queensland towns have beautiful lagoons as many times during the year you can't swim in the ocean.

This is the beach on the other side of the Lagoon, pretty nice eh!

We spent the entire day driving, stopped at Marleborough Van Park for the night.  Met a couple on their way up to Cairns, just spent a week in Hervey Bay and said it was a great spot, so we thought we would head there next.

It must have been house moving day in Queensland as we saw several houses being moved.  Not only do they have a pilot car leading the way but near towns of any size they also have police cars driving down the middle of the highway with their lights flashing making people get over.  They really do things differently down here.

We stopped at Rockhampton Heritage Centre, it was a very interesting place, we even got a ride in a very old double decker bus. They start it up every once in a while and drive it around the park, it was our lucky day.

We had to take a picture of this old car because it was made in Canada and shipped over to Australia, they have a big restoration shop at the Heritage Centre and they do a really good job.

Everyone should have one of these - if you can't tell they are chili peppers

Next we went to Gladstone and had lunch across the water from where we caught the boat to Heron's Island the last time we were down.  We wanted to see if anything looked familiar and it did.  We had a lovely picnic in the park and then took a drive around the area we stayed.  Our hotel was still there and the restaurant we had dinner in, however, they really spiffed up the area.  It was really nice.

That night we had a free camping spot at Gin Gin. 

We went to Bundaberg, we were going to have a tour of the Rum factory, however, they charge $25.00 per person and I don't even like the stuff, Dalton is a Scotch drinker so we decided to give it a miss.

We made it to Hervey Bay, stayed at the Torquay Caravan Park, it is one of the Hervey Bay Beach Front Caravan Parks, there are four and they are right on the beach, it was a really nice place, however, the woman looking after it was a bit of a bitch, I wanted to nominate her for the nastiest person in Australia, I am sure they must have some sort of contest for that, they seem to have a contest for everything else.

We also walked 6km for a pizza.  No, you didn't misread and it isn't a typo, we really did walk 6km for pizza, it was really good too.  Viva Italia, wood fired pizza and it is only $8.90 for a small one.

There is a beautiful walking path all along the Esplanade, wide enough for walkers and cyclists, they also have exercise equipment placed every few hundred meters.  During the day you can see people running, stopping and working out, I tell you, it made me very tired watching all that energy being used up.  There are toilet blocks along the way as well.  We didn't check but it seems like there is one about every 1-1 1/2kms.  I tell you, this place is really civilized.

Dalton played golf and we moved to the Point Vernon Caravan Park which is very nice and has lovely people running it.