We left Capricorn Caves, near Rockhampton heading north again along the Bruce Highway…

…along the most empty stretch of the trip, towards Mackay. Passed signs like “Are we there yet?” and “Still a long way to go, kids”.

Stopped for coffee at the Marlborough Service Station. The staff were lovely. Fran may have been influenced by the free churro with coffee offer.

Carmila: Stopped for the toilet and to buy some Kit Kats, to support the local sugar industry 😉. It’s all sugar cane fields from here to Mackay (and beyond). Great to see some green after hundreds of kilometres of dried out landscape. We noted the signs “Use your cane train brain” and looked out for cane trains.

We stopped at the Koumala Hotel for lunch, but it turns out today isn’t a kitchen cooking day. So we ventured off the highway to Sarina Beach Motel’s on site restaurant for a couple of burgers. We had stayed here in December. Tom tried to grab a coconut from a tree for dessert, but was unsuccessful.

We drove through the suburbs of Mackay, then on to Cape Hillsborough Nature Tourist Park, where we’ll stay for a few days.

Charging:

We left Capricorn Caves with a full tank, having charged overnight from the power point on the deck of our cabin. At Marlborough, since they have a fast charger, we plugged in for the few minutes we were there, but didn’t need to. When we were here last in December/January this charger was broken, but it’s working now. Similarly, we charged at Carmila while we were stopped there anyway.

We’ll charge at our accommodation in Cape Hillsborough