Day 10, Monday 11th August – So many things to watch out for…

We made it all of 40 metres before our first stop this morning, and no it wasn’t because of anything Ural related!

Rob and Sue were relatively local to Biloela, stopping at the bakery across the road from our overnight stop on their way home to Monto. Powered by a 1600cc Renault engine, with an auto gearbox and cruise control, this trike and caravan certainly had a presence, and not just because of the colour!

I took Liz in search of the steam train at Mt Morgan, but it continues to evade me.

Between Mt Morgan and Rockhampton we were surprised by a 2 or 3 foot tall kangaroo that suddenly appeared in the opposite travel lane. Surprised enough that I lifted my right leg out of the impact zone, and a surprise no doubt to the kanga who changed direction at the last second. Phew.

Made it through the Rockhampton traffic and soon enough we were in sugar cane country.

At a fuel stop I managed to find the only petrol pump without auto shutoff and overflowed the fuel tank. Liz remained calm, having seen this play out up in the Pilbara a few years ago. 😁

After we cleaned up and got going I heard some reports of “a couple of Evil Kneivels floating around” over the UHF , and sure enough we saw some motorcycle police 😁 soon afterwards.

Found the best bakery of the trip to date (Huddo’s Bakery in Sarina), where we snagged a couple of free donuts🥳🥳. No doubt helped by being the last customers for the day😁

Chose the Hay Point Hotel for the night, just down the road from two deepwater coal export terminals, Hay Point and Dalrymple

But vigilance still required

The fella at the hotel left me paranoid with a story of a croc in the nearby creek when I mentioned going for a walk down the beach.

As we set out I reminded Liz of the anecdote , where you don’t have to outrun the crocodile, you just have to outrun the slowest person in the group! Liz seemed a bit too happy for my liking.

And not helped by the discussion of not being able to directionalise noise, so I’d have to wait and see which way Liz would take off, giving her a second or two headstart😭😭