“There’s a lizard in our toolbox compartment. He’s about 25cm long.” This statement was from Ray as we drove between Proserpine and MacKay at 9:21am this morning. Delivered, oh so casually, and without concern or alarm.

The alarm came from me. “”What!”

“Yep. I thought he could come along for the ride. He’s not hurting anything.”

I thought about the grandkids and how they’d love that. Especially Aaron’s kids who keep snakes and love reptiles. They are often chasing the tiny skinks at our place that sunbake on the rocks and sometimes come inside. They’d be all over it.

Our whole trip to MacKay I was thinking about our tiny passenger and hoping he was ok. Ray said there was a hole in the toolbox compartment that he got in through. Maybe he will decide to alight at one of our stops. We’d check later.

Our trip today was taking us to Rockhampton. We were stopping overnight in a caravan park, staying hitched up for a quick exit in the morning. Today’s trip was around 490km.

We had good radio reception all the way so we rocked out to a variety of tunes. When Guns and Roses came on and the head banging and fist pumping started (me, not Ray) we knew we had to tone it down for safety sake. It was time for morning tea.

We stopped in Sarina, delighted to see an off lead dog park at the local Apex park. The Captain loves having a run around without his lead on and we love watching him. His ears flop around and he looks like he is going to take off.

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The scenery moved from sugar cane to eucalyptus trees. We had well and truly left the Tropics and we were now in the Central Coast.

Pulling into our caravan park at Rockhampton was a relief. I was exhausted and I didn’t do any driving. We set up the bare essentials and Ray took Henry for a walk. The people next to us had the very same caravan as us and that is where Ray stayed chatting for the next hour. We had a fish and salad dinner (the fish Ray caught in Airlie Beach) and called it a night. Long days on the road are tough but because our country is so big they are necessary if you have a timeline.

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