Words:  Busababe

Photos: Busababe, Thommo

Funny old thing, Life. Earlier this year I'd put in for some holidays to take a trip to the Apple Isle with Leigh and the kids in late June/early July. When that didn't eventuate, I thought about what I was going to do with my week off. I didn't want to cancel them, as I'd not had time off since Christmas. Chatting to Thommo one night on the phone, he suggested that I come up to QLD and pay him a visit ( actually he was whinging that no-one made the trip up there and I said, "yeah, okay, I'll come up ). So the plane trip to Rockhampton was booked, and plans got underway.

The idea was for us to spend a week out on the roads less travelled by the Bovi and see some sights of the Sunshine State that I'd not seen before. " I'll organise all the camping gear, and get the Bandit ready for ya" Thommo had informed me. Cool ! Regular updates came through on my phone on the progress of putting the Bandit back together and ready for touring.

Flying in on the the Friday arvo, Thommo met me at the airport, on the DR, along with his sister in the car to whisk me to our starting point of Gracemere. Within 90 minutes of arriving, we were leaving Thommo's sisters place and heading for the coast just south of Yeppoon. The afternoon traffic heading for the coast was not heavy, so the pace was comfortably quick. Thommo had booked a cabin in one of the caravan parks, so setting up camp for the first night was not necessary. We walked down to the local take away and got a beaut feed of fish and chips. Took it back to the cabin and proceeded to scoff it down along with a smallish bottle Bundy. Plans for the coming week were discussed along with bikes and other gossip.

Getting up before sunrise on the first day of your holiday is not normally something I'd be keen on, but I wouldn't have missed this sunrise for the world.

On the road after having breakfast at the same takeaway joint, we headed up the coast to Yeppoon and after that it was to be westward ho to Emerald and a couple of nights camping near Fairbairn Dam.

Thommo at a lookoout near Yeppoon -

Heading back through Rocky, we fuelled up the bikes and got outta Dodge. Long plains of straight roads, but the sights of the mining that go on up here kept my interest -

This is one of the coal loaders that go across the road. A 50 ton grader just keeps pushing the black stuff from the big pile on the right of the photo to the base of the loader. Trains pull up under the feeder and head down the rail line to Gladstone.

I had no real idea of the extent of the mining operations up here, so when we stopped at the Blackwater, I played tourist. This is one of the buckets that is used on a drag-line in one of the open cut coal mines in the area. Mining operations happen pretty close to the road so it's not unusual to see on of these big buggers up close.