Bowenwood?

This morning we left early again. So early that we didn’t even have breakfast, we all just jumped in the car. We stopped after about an hour of driving at a deserted town (all the small towns here are so deserted - no body is around!) and had our breakfast. Next to us was two trees which were full of birds and nests. Literally hundreds of nests were scattered throughout the two trees. Most of the birds were black birds, but Esmee spotted a beautiful yellow one. There was a horse behind us in a paddock, so Esmee and I went to say hello and fed it the remains of our carrots. We gave it the name Brownie. Poor horse, having to stand in the heat all day.



The horse we saw

The drive was getting less scenic. Today all we saw was sugar cane farms, banana farms and dry land with a few cows on it. We stopped at a big city called Townsville which had a big aquarium which I wanted to do. It was a replica of the Barrier Reef, and seeing as we had just done it, we decided to wait until the aquarium in Sydney, which is apparently really really cool. We drove down a street called ‘The Strand’ which was along the waterfront until we reached two water/swimming parks. One was a kids one and the other was a big salt walter out door pool, which was nice seeing as you couldn’t actually swim in the ocean because of the stingers. Esmee decided to go to the kids one, so we lay on the grass and watched her for a bit until she got bored and wanted to go to the other one. After the salt water pool, Camiel and I decided it was time for McDonalds. Finally! We drove to McD and got some cheeseburgers, and took the advantage that Australia has 719 McDonalds that have access to free wireless. I plugged in my laptop as It was dead, and went online to post my blog, check my emails and talk to Ross and Shannon for a bit. After fourty five minutes, it was definitely time to leave as dad was getting impatient.


Camiel found his sister school!

It’s a shame that the first kangaroo I saw while in Australia since the last was a dead one. We were driving and came across a dead one on the road. There are dead kangaroos on the road all over Australia, as people accidently drive into them at night. It must be a pretty big bump, because they are reasonably sized animals. We also noticed a big smoke cloud up ahead, which turned out to be a bush fire right next to the road. It’s a shame, the problem of bush fires that they have here in Aus. Families got wiped out during the Melbourne bush fires early this year.

We drove over a bridge that was suppose to have a river flowing underneath it. There was no water. It was just a dry patch of land underneath the bridge. So dry you could walk across the whole thing. Not a single drop of water was beneath the bridge. I found this pretty insane, that the climate could get so hot here that a whole river would dry up during the summer months. I have seen some water signs asking to try and preserve the water as Australia is experiencing a major drought. You could say that alright! We came up to a place called Bowen, which has had an increase of 25000 tourists since the making of the film ‘Australia’. Why? Because Bowen is the place where the cast and crew stayed while filming. Some of the movie is filmed here in Bowen, and casts would travel a few hours in land to shoot the more desert scenes. The even have a ‘Bowenwood’ sign up on the hills, replicating ‘Hollywood’. Its a small town though, nothing interesting. No shopping mall. Only a Subway and Eagle Boys. There isn’t much to do here. It was coming close to 5.30, so we had to set up camp. We found a camp ground that accepted tenting (most here don’t) which is called Horseshoe Bay Resort. It was dry - thankfully, so we had no problem setting up our tents.


Esmee on the beach

I took Esmee to the pool (she can never get enough of the water!), and we spotted some colourful lorikeets in the trees. You know the ones you can buy at the pet shop which are rainbow coloured? We had 2 minute noodles for dinner as there wasn’t really a kitchen, and then climbed into our tents. Its 550 km to Rockhampton, which is our next big destination. We’ll see how far we get tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Brittany!!!! :)
Fem
xox