It's 29C when we wake up at 8:30. Yuk! We take our time getting ready -- it's too hot to be quick -- amble out to the car and pop into the supermarket for some cold water. It's ten thirty, we've 285km to Noosa, tonight, so should make it for a late lunch. We set off, filling the tank for good measure and make our way through the sugar cane plantations and over the criss-crossing sugar cane railway -- a boy's delight, an 00 guage railway that winds its way through the plantations from the Daintree river in Cape Trib. to Brisbane -- out to the Bruce Highway and south towards Brisbane.
The first distance marker shows 322km to Mackay and there's a moment of shock realisation from Helen in the navigation seat. A quick refernece to the map reveals a small, Enronesque hole in the calculations. Our lazy 250km roll into Noosa is to become a 1000km marathon. Oops. A good job my natural demeanour is a sigh and a resigned shrug of the shoulders. There's not a lot you can say about a 1000km drive except to note two things. Firstly, you can't really "extend" the 100kmh speed limit by much as those earnest fellows in blue have learnt to camoflage themselves and their radars at the side of the road so a 1000km journey really will take 10 hours (feel free to use a calculator, Rob). The second thing to note is that at the earliest opportunity, Helen was promoted to driver for the next 750 of those km. And I overtook her in reading her book.
Shortly before I grudgingly took over the reins again we made a quick phone call to Noosa to say we'd be late. At this point the last thing you need is for Noosa to say they haven't heard of you, you don't have a booking and they're full. How tiresome. With all but AU$0.18 of our last credit on the phone we booked into Maroochydore a little further down the road.
Maroochy[sic] -- I don't know why they change their names -- was a bit odd on arrival. We had some funny stares as we got out of the car, the walkway lights went out, the men's light timed out and our neighbours were very loud.
Maroochydore YHA S26.64684
E153.08220 Elev. 10m
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.