Road trip from Cairns to the Gold Coast
We left Cairns on Saturday 8th. We'd originally planned to fly to Rockhampton and drive from there, but the tickets happened to be outrageously expensive (as in, it's twice as expensive to do Cairns to Rockampton as it is to do Adelaide to Cairns — go figure).
Here's where we stopped on the way.
First stop was Mission Beach.
We stopped in Townsville for a break. The large island off Townsville is called Magnetic Island.
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On the way we cross many, many sugar cane fields.
After a quick drive through Bowen hoping to find accomodation, we find the only hotels are on top of noisy pubs. It's a saturday night, so that doesn't sound like a good idea. We decide to continue on to Airlie Beach, where we find two rooms at the Club Crocodile.
The next day, we have a walk around the seafront before hitting the road again.
Somewhere on the road, cows are looking at the cars driving past.
Next stop is Sarina Beach, where we stop for lunch at the Surf club, overlooking the beach, watching a group of surf students.
Next stop is Clairview. There isn't really a beach there, but because of the low tide we get to see the mangroves. The trees are growing in land that's covered at high tide, and grow with weird, twisted shapes. The trees send roots upwards out of the ground to breath, as the ground is too packed and salty which prevents it from being aerated.
On the road again! Later, we stop at Marlborough to call the hotel we booked in Rockhampton. Marlborough is a tiny place and there is no phone booth in sight. Luckily there is a pub, where I am told that the nearest payphone is in... Rockhampton. Great. We'll get to use their phone to confirm our booking. Pfew.
In Rockhampton we stay in one of the cheapest hotel, which happens to be a beautiful, old historical building: one of the oldest buildings in Rockhampton in fact.
A lot of forests in Australia know regular fires. It's actually part of the lifecycles of the forest: it cleans up the underwoods, provides fertiliser for the trees that grow tall above the flames and are fire-resistant. Some species of trees actually need fire for their seed to germinate: this way the seed just waits on the ground, and after it's been roasted, it springs to life in an ideal environment with no competition from the shrubs and lots of ashes to grow in.
We stopped in Harvey bay for lunch and an extended walk along the beach, as this was a short leg of our trip.
Our next stop is Mooloolaba, a beautiful seafront village down south from Noosa.
After leaving Mooloolaba we head off to check out Australia Zoo! Crikey! After that we go for a quick peak at the Glasshouse Mountains, weird volcanic remains.
We finally reach Brisbane, after three days of driving.
