Beautiful Bundaberg

It was a disturbed night with worrying news.  The phone rang at 10pm.  It was my brother to say that his older son Paul (not the one who lives with us, Paul lives with Terry) had taken himself off to Casualty that afternoon with an acute pain in the stomach.  The hospital rang Terry at 6.30 to say that Paul was being transferred to another hospital for surgery - this was the first Terry knew anything about it.  He was working at Camden, a good hour to hour and a half's drive away.  And he'd been working on an angle grinder all afternoon so he was filthy and tired. He is restoring an historic house and does all sorts of work, from beautiful cabinetry to ensuring that old stables don't fall down.

The second phone call was at 12 midnight to say that Paul was being prepared for surgery and the third call at 2am was to say that he had come through and was in recovery.  Paul has Crohns Disease and an ulcer had perforated, due to use of pain killers.  He is a very sick young man and still in ICU each time we have checked today.

'Iris' our GPS, would not accept Jan's address so we just put in Bundaberg and Iris in her technological wisdon decided that we needed West Bundaberg, which we didn't - Jan lives right on the water, so it is definitely not west since Bundaberg is on the east coast.

However you cannot argue with computerized gizmos when they have the bit between their teeth, so we humoured her - it.

It is certainly another gorgeous day, 20degC, blue skies.  Queensland is looking good right now, after a very traumatic, wet, Wet Season.  The Dry Season has so far has hardly been dry either, and everything is green and lush.

In just 20 minutes we passed the turn-off for the Glasshouse Mountains, and Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo, so we had nearly reached Peter's goal after all yesterday.  Radiata Pine plantations appeared alongside, the trees growing straight and tall, standing as though on parade in orderly rows.  This timber is used in Australia for house frames and such.  Small, self-seeded ones lurked at the edges, looking like cadets watching in admiration and thinking 'I want to be big and strong like you when I grow up'.

We passed the Ettamogah pub at Caloundra, one of several in Australia based on a popular and iconic cartoon series. On our 2008 Queensland trip we had a meal here.

The names we pass are so familiar to us Aussies that we forget that they are unusual - even exotic - to others.  In multisyllabic words we usually put the emphasis on the second syllable, though only slightly, so Maroochydore is pronounced Mar- oo-chee-door.  Capital city names though are an exception  for some reason, with the emphasis slightly on the first syllable.   And of course there are many other exceptions to the rule as there are for all English rules lol!  I have been thinking a lot about the names we come across this trip, as have been making an effort to find the meanings of them, as you will have noticed.

By 9.30 it was 22 deg, the traffic was light and we were travelling at 95kph.  It was so nice after yesterday.  Naturally since we are towing we go slower than if we were just driving.  

The parts of the road I like the best are where the bush comes down to the sides of the road, whether hiding development behind it or as part of undeveloped areas.

As we drove we saw many signs for other places familiar from our 2008 Queensland trip.  Rainbow Beach,  Fraser Island - where signs on the beach warn to watch for planes.  It is an official runway and we were told that it is the only official beach runway in Australia - in the southern hemisphere, I think.

Tin Can Bay, where on a cold day we stood in chilly rain and freezing water and hand the joy of hand feeding wild dolphins.  Nathan got to feed 2 of them in fact.

We stopped for fuel at Matilda Travel Centre, had a yummy scone.  When we returned to the car we found that Peter had forgotten to close the windows on the car, which had my handbag, camera, phone and other valuables in it.  We had prayed for a safe and uneventful journey as usual before we left this morning and now I gave thanks to the Lord for His protection. The Lord is good indeed!

Feeling rested, refreshed and renewed enthusiasm that we were getting closer to Bundaberg we resumed our trip, soon passing a sign for Maryborough.  We had been there in 2008 too, just in time for the Mary Poppins festival which had conveniently been re-scheduled to fit in with our visit.  Very kind of them!  PL Travers, author of the Mary Poppins books, was born in and spent her early years in Maryborough and each year there is a full-on festival with lots of activities, people in costume, 

and a parade.

In town there is a statue of Mary Poppins herself.

And no, the town is not named after Mary Poppins.  It sits on the Mary River, which was re-named in 1847 by Governor FitzRoy after his wife, Lady Mary Lennox.

Cane farms were more in evidence now, the huge spraying system on one farm stretched so far I couldn't count the sections.  I took over the driving from midday.  Iris had been silent for some time and we thought she was sulking .  We had just commented on it.  But when we stopped to swap over for me to drive she spoke up and told us to continue for 61 kms.  Sorry Iris, I know we're annoying but sometimes we just have to stop and you'll  just have to put up with it!  It was 24deg now, a glorious day with a nice breeze.

28 kms out of Bundy we stopped in a rest area off the highway for a sandwich.  Another caravan had already set up for the night.  You can free-camp there overnight.  there is a dry compost toilet but no potable water.  I know these toilets go well for private homes the public ones in rest areas are not my favourite thing.  I don't enjoy having to use them at all.

A baby black-headed butcher bird and a baby magpie came begging for food, almost climbing into the caravan.

Juvenile Butcher Bird

Juvenile Magpie

Adult Magpie - and yes, it was actually larger than the juvenile and about twice the size of the juvenile Butcher Bird.

 The man from the other caravan came over to talk - he had had to butcher bird eating from his hand but he said his wife didn't appreciate the big monitor lizards walking through their camp-site.  They had seen about six of them.  Don't think I'd enjoy that either - they can be huge!

We shared our lunch with a whole family of magpies in the end, the baby butcher bird, a kookaburra and a crow.  But they are very fussy eaters - they didn't like rye bread, only the fresh light rye.  And we don't have any meat for them either - so bad luck, birdies vbg.

We finally arrived at Jan's, and were made so very welcome.  We are now settled into her daughter Sandy's lovely house, feeling very comfortable.  It is so good to be with her again and I'm looking forward to the next few days.

So for now - blessings,

Sandie