Central Queensland

21 May - Town of 1770

Nationally renowned as the only town in Australia with numbers in its name, ’1770’ has been a haunt of ours for many years. So we still haven’t really started our journey!

After almost a week here, we are well into this ’on the wallaby thing’. A hard day at the office for us is having to make an early tide sometime before midday. Fishing here has improved, to the extent that we’ve had to call a halt for our last two days because the freezer is getting full.

1770’s camping ground has been voted the best in the state and it is a well-deserved accolade. The facilities are ’ok’, the camp sites are ’average’ - sand, no slabs, no waste drains…. BUT the location and the atmosphere more than compensate!!! Tonight is the Friday before the fabulous “1770 Festival” which celebrates the anniversary of the landing of Cook and crew here on 24 May 1770. (Penny drops for the slow!!!) Accordingly, the camp is packed. The festival site is just outside the camp entrance and the anticipation is electric!

This is a very small town (pop 56), but is there really any such thing in Australia any more? Bundaberg is 120 km away and Gladstone about the same distance the other direction (north). Both are fairly large provincial cities with all the services of much larger cities. As a result, places like this are not really country towns any more.

So tonight, local weekenders have encroached on our quiet grey nomad world. They have children! Lots of them! Mostly well controlled. But we shall see. As a rule the ‘camp discipline’ in these crowded situations is rather effective at keeping the lid on things. The “boys” (aged between 20 and 60) camped behind us with the 90 cans of Bundy and Coke and their stereo system pumping, are another matter altogether!


23 May - 1770 and Byfield State Forest

As we suspected, the last couple of nights were a little wild in camp! On a smaller scale, our location was a little like camping between Side Show Alley and the Cattleman’s Bar at the Ekka. Last night, Saturday, was out of control until well after 3:00 am. One father took his own early morning vengeance on some of the worst perpetrators by giving his toddler a saucepan lid and a spoon to belt beside the can-littered camp of some of the local lads who were attempting to sleep it all off.

We were on the road fairly early (for us) for a long haul to Byfield State Forest, just north of Yeppoon.

You could hear a pin drop at forty paces at our campsite at Red Rock in the forest tonight. What a contrast! Mind you, the birds put on a bit of a turn on sunset and perhaps tomorrow morning could make us change our tune about the “serenity“.

We are here for a couple of nights, “rough’n it“… well, in our own style. It might be a good time to describe the way our ‘rig’ is set up for this long trip, where we expect to bush camp for most of the time.

When Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, he had access to less computer power than we have in one of our two mobile phones. Eisenhower managed the invasion of Europe in 1944 with well less than 10% of the communications technology we carry. What would Ike have given to be able to zoom into street level maps and eye level photos of France? Would John Wayne have got lost somewhere near St Marie Eglise in “The Longest Day” if he had a GPS?

So what do we carry?

Two mobile phones
A Tomtom GPS
Two networked computers
A broadband network modem
Two digital cameras
A SD set-top-box
A DVD Player
CD/AM/FM Radio (two)
Portable AM/FM transistor Radio
FM Transmitter
Two handheld UHF radios
A car UHF (CB) Radio
Two inverters (150W and 600W)
Colour TV
B&W TV
Numerous chargers, memory cards and adaptors…

How else could we survive? Besides, we might need to invade Europe or fly to the moon…

On the domestic front, our van has:

An air conditioner
Microwave
Two 12V/240V/Gas fridges
Gas Cook top
Gas Oven
Electric water pump

To power all this, we use LPG gas and 240V connections when we are in Caravan Parks, or our internal battery that is charged while we drive along, or by our solar panel when we camp where there is no power.

To keep us amused we have a small library of second hand books, 300 DVD movies; 200 music CDs; more than 50 CD books and radio plays; a 16 ft Canadian canoe; outboard motor; crab pots; fishing gear, etc…

More than 100lt of fuel capacity move all this along and, to sustain us, about the same amount of water and slightly less beer.

Oh, and we almost forgot the telescope!!!

How else could we ever survive for 6 months?……

Little wonder Burke and Wills never made it!