The Drive from Rockhampton to Mackay

If you have read either of my last two posts, you will know I’m currently on a road trip. Today, I thought I would clear up the ‘I’ bit, as in just me. So, what’s happened to Mrs Bob and Elizabeth?

Well, they haven’t come along, and here’s why.

Whilst I absolutely love going on road trips and driving down endlessly long roads…

Mrs Bob and Elizabeth are not so keen. But that’s okay, I don’t share their passion of going shopping for shoes and handbags either.

Here’s what is happening though.

Mrs Bob and Elizabeth will be flying into Cairns Airport, arriving next Tuesday. So their journey to Cairns will take about an hour and a half, significantly shorter than my journey.

I will be there to meet them at the airport. We then have four days booked in Cairns and another three days when we will be staying in Port Douglas. I will then drop them back to the airport and continue driving to complete the journey back to Brisbane in three days.

The real beauty of this idea is that the cost of the petrol for my entire journey approximately = how much it would have cost me for a return flight to Cairns. The costs of my accommodation along the way approximately = how much it would have cost to rent a car for a week with full insurance when we got there.

Therefore, as we say when we wrap up equations, I’ve got me a free road trip.

My road trip continued

The bulk of my journey today took me from Rockhampton to Mackay. Having now completed that drive, I can tell you what’s in between.

Nothing!

That’s probably a little unfair to the people who live in any one of the dozen or so very small towns along that 350 km journey, but from a drivers point of view it’s a road with nothing on it.

It is, of course, the endless road in the picture that I’ve posted above. All along the way it looks like this…

I could put more pictures up, but they would all look the same.

The one thing that did keep me entertained during this drive were the many signposts on the side of the road trying to get drivers to take a rest if they were too tired. Here is just one of them…

I wish I could remember all the signposts and all the ways they have thought up to tell you you might be tired, but here are just some I can remember:

• Tired drivers die
• Survive this drive
• Take a break
• Break the drive, stay alive
• Driver fatigue kills, rest if sleepy
• Rest or R.I.P.

Then there were other signs like “Still a long way to go kids.” That was followed a little later with “How long to go dad?” Just to make sure there were no complaints, later there was a sign that said “How long to go Mum?”

I was even invited to play trivia to keep me alert. First question was “Which flower is the emblem of Queensland?” I passed that sign and I think I had a couple of minutes to try and conjure up an answer; I failed. Then the next signed informed me it was the Cooktown Orchid.

I should have known.

The next sign said “Keep playing trivia, it may save your life.”

But then there were no more questions. I was driving alone, how could I think up questions for myself? Or did they expect me to maybe download a trivia quiz app to my smart phone and start playing trivia on that?

Well, of course I didn’t, that would have been really dangerous.

Anyway, I didn’t need to, there was no danger of me falling asleep. The many creeks I had passed along the way had me puzzled. Creeks with names like ‘Twelve Mile Creek‘, “Ten Mile Creek‘, ‘Six Mile Creek‘, ‘Deep Creek‘ and ‘Sandy Creek‘.

I kept thinking, “I wonder how they think of the names for all these creeks?”

Clairview

About halfway along this drive is what appeared to be, well according to the map I was looking at, the ideal town to stop off at for a rest and some refreshments. It was called Clairview, and I thought it would be a great place for me to get out and stretch my legs.

It was a beach town, so maybe I could go for a walk along the beach. I’d probably get a bite to eat in one of the restaurants or perhaps have a stroll around the town centre.

This, as it turns out, is Clairview…

It did have a rather interesting sign to go along with all the other interesting signs I’d read along the way….

Well, the tide was out anyway.