Sunday 7th October 2007

We were up earlier than usual this morning - so that we could have some breakfast and make sure our bags were packed, so that we could check out at about 9.30am. With all that done, we walked down to the campervan rental place - and got there at about 10am. We filled out all our paperwork and then were given the keys to our new home for the next 6 days - a 4wd campervan - it's awesome and we called it Bruce (because the road South is called the Bruce Highway)! After collecting our bags from the Bohemia Resort, we set off on our road trip to Darwin, and said goodbye to Cairns.

The campervan company had told us that they'd like for us to take the van down the East Coast to Townsville and then cut across Queensland into the Northern Territory. From there, we would head North to Darwin. The total distance is about 2900(ish) kilometers and we're only allowed to drive between dawn and dusk - driving outside of these hours increases the risk of hitting wildlife! With all that in mind, we started heading South...

We drove the exact same route on which the Greyhound had travelled (but obviously in the opposite direction) and everything went really well. The weather was beautiful - it was about 29° - and we had some good tunes on the radio. Not long after we'd passed by Mission Beach, we pulled into the same road side café as we'd ate in on the way up... and had fish & chips again.

Because of the large distance we have to drive before Friday, we decided that we wanted to do 500km a day - but by the time we'd reached Townsville it was about 5pm so we thought we'd stop and set up camp for the night. As the camp was quite out of town, we just parked up and ate in the café that's on site before hanging around the site and then going to bed. This campervan is slightly different to the one we had in New Zealand - the bed is up by the ceiling - so I hope it doesn't collapse in the night!

Oh, I did wonder why people seemed to be ignoring me today - then I realised it was because I was wearing my England shirt, and England beat the Aussies in the Rugby World Cup last night... come on England!

Yippee! On the road again!


Distance travelled today: 347km Distance travelled in total: 347km