Gary is working very hard on the sugar cane harvest, loading the little trains that take the cane to the processing plant. Long hours, and he says he runs over plenty of snakes!
Maureen was not working so she and I hired a car, left Gary behind and went off to the hinterland to explore the Pioneer Valley and up to Eungella in the mountains.
We stopped at the Pinnacle Pub for one of their famous Pies. The steak and mushroom was certainly delicious and the sun was shining. Everything else listed on our tourist guide was closed. Don’t try to up there on a Monday!
We saw plenty of wildlife (in the wild) including a kookaburra which seemed to have been trained to pose for tourists. It is so much more exciting to see the animals in their natural surroundings rather than in a wildlife park.
The big attraction is the platypuses. We stayed at Broken River Eco resort where we had our own self contained chalet, complete with pot belly stove. Believe it or not we sat in front of a roaring log fire in the lodge that afternoon and played scrabble!
We couldn’t see any sign of platypus when we walked to the river late in the afternoon, despite the fact that people had been spotting them all day.
However my eagle eyes spied the tell tale ring of ripples as we made our way back to the lodge. What a tiny creature, but fascinating to watch as he went about his (or her) business, diving down, sending up a stream of bubbles and resurfacing for a few seconds. You had to be quick to capture a photo.
After a chilly start the next morning we headed off on a detour to Cape Hillsborough. Another beautiful coastal area with the camping ground adjacent to the beach.
We weren’t there to see the kangaroos come down onto the beach in the late afternoon, but it must be an amazing sight.
We stopped for a well deserved Devonshire tea at a relocated and converted old railway station on the way home to Mackay.
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