There is not really much more we wanted to see in Rockhampton but Mackay was looking promising as a destination so we went directly there. There was more of the same scenery as yesterday as we drove along the 2 lane Bruce Highway. There was still some evidence of the recent cyclone.
Flat planes with tall grass and the odd tree and occasionally some cattle grazing just behind the trees that border the highway. This is as interesting as driving across Saskatchewan. Stare at this photo for four hours and that's pretty well how the drive would feel. Add the rumble of the tires on the chip and tar surface and you really need to turn up the music to drown it out.
There are lots of flood warning signs and depth gauges at every creek or dip in the road. A lot of people have their vehicles modified to cope with the flooded roads. This is what my Highlander would look like with air intake, roo bars, heavy duty bumper and skid plate.
The highway did get near the ocean for a few kilometres and we stopped to stretch our legs at the small settlement of Clairview.
After that, we started to see some hills and the fields were full of sugar cane. As we arrived in Mackay, we were pleasantly surprised to discover a thoroughly modern city of 100,000 that seemed to be bustling with many new commercial enterprises and large shopping centres. The city is the hub for some fairly large coal mining operations, a busy port and sugar refining. A real contrast from the last two days.
We arrived at our brand new motel that was a block from a park on the ocean. A fabulous property. A complimentary latte as we were checking in.
After unloading the car, we took a drive to the Mackay Marina, several km outside of town. This is a combination commercial port operation and resort marina with hotels and many cafes. We had lunch overlooking the yacht basin.
All of the docks are floating concrete structures supported by very large pilings. The breakwater is about 8 metres high. Looks pretty cyclone proof!
Some of the nicest looking tugs I have ever seen were berthed in the yacht basin.
The original lighthouse has been preserved, it was built in 1885 and finally decommissioned from active service in 1985.
We drove to Slade Point which provided an overlook of the shoreline and the southern most of the
Whitsunday Islands.
From there we drove to Black Beach. It was near low tide and there were extensive sand bars exposed giving an interesting look to the beach.
There were some interesting patterns in the sand from the various sea critters...
We walked around a bit but the heat was getting to us so we got back in the car and returned to our motel. We stopped at the beach just down the street from it to find the low tide had the water several hundred meters out from the dry sand beach!
Some nice seashore vegetation...
We are now in an area where you are best to swim in the Motel pool as indicated by several of the warning signs we saw today.
So, we returned to our place and had a nice swim before going out for some Malaysian food for supper.
We are off to Airlie Beach tomorrow and will be away from wifi for a couple of days so the blog will be on a hiatus until at least Sunday night.
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