Yesterday was a public holiday.

The park was quiet with some people choosing to clean the outside of their vans. I even spotted one man on top of his with a sud filled mop! Much too keen for my liking. 
Caleb had been onto us about having a rest day for a while now. He says we are always off doing things and he never just gets the opportunity to play with his toys. We led him to believe that he had made the decision to have a rest day, but in truth we had to pull down the annexe and pack it away. Caleb made a new friend, Luke, visiting his Granny who was in the park. Luke promptly told him that because it was a public holiday he shouldn’t have to do his schoolwork. (He was just about finished by this stage). He played happily while we packed up. We did some planning for future possibilities, and have created a vision board of our lives after our adventure. Ray received a phone call a couple of nights ago with a job offer, so that dominated most of our conversation. (No decisions made yet). We are a bit sad to be leaving Airlie Beach. It’s a lovely spot and the amenities in this park are the best we’ve had so far on the trip. They would easily fit in a 5 star resort. 

Day 258

We hit the road travelling North towards Townsville this morning. We bypassed the town of Bowen but did stop to snap some photos at the Massive Mango. The Kensington Mango comes from this area and although it isn’t mango season, I just adore mango chutney. I slather it on everything, use it as salad dressing and could eat it directly from the jar. So, even though the season is over, chutneys and jams are normally in abundance. 

We stopped at a little town called Home Hill to eat our lunch. They provide a free camping area near the tourist information centre where travellers can stay for 48 hours for free. Toilets and showers are provided. It was pretty busy and we should have taken notice of it a little more, in light of what was to come…

We visited the information centre, picking up brochures and guide books for our trek further up the coast. 

We had picked a free camp to stay at not far from Townsville at a place called Saunders Beach. Before we could intend on doing any free camping, we needed to replace the caravan battery. The last time we camped without power, we had a waning battery, making for very primitive camp life. We had to find a deep cycle battery, not easy in the smaller towns we passed through. 
We breezed into Townsville, picking up the correct battery and parting with $350. We have a lot of nights free camping ahead of us to justify that spend!
It was nearly 5pm when we pulled into Saunders Beach. A lovely camp spot right on the beach. A lot if other people thought so too because it was full! We couldn’t squeeze in anywhere! Caleb started to grow a little concerned that it would soon be dark and that meant it was soon to be dinner time too. In the end we had to tell him to zip it because he was making a tense situation worse. We consulted our trusty “Camps” book and found another free camp about 10km up the road. We decided to head there and if that was full, to go back to Townsville to a caravan park for the night. 
We pulled in, drove past the crocodile warning signs, and a literal caravan city met us. There were about 40 vans, campers and tents of all shapes and sizes set up for the night. The maximum stay here is 48 hours and we could see why. Given the opportunity, it would be a good stop for a week or two (except that our battery power wouldn’t last that long). Many of the vans and people on the road full time are totally self contained. They either have solar panels for power or they carry small generators, some have both. The amount of people who travel this way is mind blowing, we totally underestimated how many nomads are out on the roads at any one time. Ray read somewhere that there were over 100,000 caravans on the roads in Australia every day. Not to mention campervans, rental vans full of overseas tourists and backpackers etc. I even spotted a panel van today, decked out in the back and home for some German tourists. 
Anyway, we were able to squeeze into the last available spot which I suspect was still there because of the manouvering around a tree and picnic table required to reverse into it. Luckily, Ray is a dab hand at caravan reversing and I got out and waved my hands about trying to look like I was being of some use. 
We met our neighbours and settled in for the night. 
Please note. Since Karen’s visit I’ve been experimenting with camera angles and using different perspectives in my photos. I’ve included a random shot of the popular bridge in Berderkin, used for photography buffs.