Everything is wet and muddy this morning in the little area behind the hotel. Bloke in the tent next to us had a job wiping down and packing away his camping gear. He left quite quickly while we had a leisurely breakfast in the comfort of our van. We are heading in the general direction of Townsville with no other agenda other than to see whatever we can along the way. No time frames at this stage. Thats one good thing about living on the road is that it’s about the journey as well as the destination. Wherever you are at that point in time, it is home. We are living this gypsy life alongside a few hundred thousand Australian retirees, referred to as the grey nomads.
Driving along the Bruce highway headed south we stopped in at a Mango plantation that had a shop doing frozen mango ice creams as well as many other things. After that Elaine had me turning into the mountains to a place she had read about called Little Crystal Creek and Big Crystal Creek. Big Crystal was a free camp site and Little Crystal Creek was a beautiful old original stone bridge. Little did wed know that it was almost at the top of the mountain, on the narrowest bit of road we have ever taken the caravan. OMG I was really a little nervous about this as we had to take the corners wide to avoid overhangs, no centre line as the road was too narrow for that and each time a car came from the opposite side we had to stop and negotiate passing. Oh fun now that it is over.
We eventually made it to the car park just before the bridge and pulled in. Could not turn around so I had to reverse into the bush so that when I drove out I could turn in the correct direction. Got some really strange looks from people who had trouble driving their cars on that road let alone a caravan that is 8.5m long and a vehicle that is 5.6m long.
We really enjoyed exploring the bridge and all the swimming holes but too cold for us to swim.
Made it back to the bottom and decided to carry on with the journey as it was too early to stop at Big Crystal Creek camp ground. Made it as far as Balgal Beach which was also a free camp. It is located on a tidal river at the beach and therefore has turtles and boat moorings etc. In fact I thought I saw a croc stick its nose above water and then slowly sink down again. I whipped out my camera only to realise that it was a big turtle. We walked on the beach and collected even more shells. I once again got eaten alive by sand flies. Far out it is the absolute worst.
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