Part 3 – “Repositioning Days”
With a fair chunk of miles to Airlie Beach (almost 12 hours – it doesn’t look that far on the map), we’d planned the drive over three days with two overnight stops, in random locations. The majority of the road up to Cairns is the A1 which is single carriageway and lots of nothingness in certain places. It was Australia Day and a bank holiday, we left Coolum and two and a half hours later we arrived in Woodgate. Our first stay on a holiday park, we’d booked a cabin for the bargain price of £57. Not expecting much, but first up the location was absolutely beautiful. Just across the road was an almost deserted 12 mile stretch of beach. The cabin was absolutely fine, a little “tired” around the edges but it was clean, had hot water for a shower and air conditioning. We spent a few hours on the beach in the afternoon, before driving a short distance up the coast to Theodolite Creek, to watch the sunset.
Bright and early the next morning we were up and on the road. We’d calculated that it was around 916 miles to Port Douglas, just under seventeen hours of driving. Next up was Yeppoon, a five hour drive up the coast. This part of the drive took us over the Tropic of Capricorn, so we made a couple of stops in Rockhampton. First was the original location of the line as some of the walls remain there. The TOC line isn’t static so probably not strictly accurate. In 1980 due to the highway being redirected the spire was moved to it’s current location and walls rebuilt to mark the Temperate and Tropic zone. We had hoped to spend a little more time in Rockhampton but the accommodation we had booked wanted us to check in by 3pm!
Our next stop was right opposite the beach at Rosslyn just outside of Yeppoon. We had a quick walk on the beach before driving over to Yeppoon for a wander. Nice small resort and the boardwalk had had a lot of work done to improve it including a water play park for the kids and a safe, sheltered swimming lagoon. It was so quiet though, it was the first day of the new school year and everyone had returned home. A great couple of days at places we’d never heard of previously but will never forget. Airlie Beach – here we come, we were looking forward to this five day stopover, booked to give us a break from being on the road constantly and hoping to see the Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef.
