Gold Coast, Queensland, April 2003

 

We had intended to take 10 days to drive leisurely from Airlie Beach to the Gold Coast and make a lot of little side trips off the main road to the coast to explore places we haven't visited before. This didn't happen. After our impromptu trip to Brisbane two weeks before, Jean was rushing to finish writing a book that she wanted to sell at a conference on the Gold Coast (the excuse for this trip), so we didn't leave until she had finished that job. This left us with only 4 days to get there. Considering that most people make the trip in 2 days, this wouldn't mean a mad rush, but it did mean considerably less time for sightseeing than we'd planned.

The links in this account go to specific pages on the Walkabout website, a great source of information.

Saturday 5 April 2003.
We set out after breakfast at 6:30 AM and stopped to share a sandwich at the information centre in Mackay.

Sarina seemed somehow smaller and further away than we remembered, some 35 km south of Mackay, but we know it does stretch off to the east to the beaches. One day we must stop there and see what it's like.

We also stopped another 100 km down the road at Clairview, despite the long drive across the railway line and past the caravan park to get to the facilities. That area has a long, rocky ocean beach, and numerous small weekender style houses, almost all with large boats in the front yard. It is certainly isolated, with only a small caravan park store.

We stopped at the big Waverley Creek rest area approximately halfway between Mackay and Rockhampton. It has a plaque commemorating the opening of the new highway between Sarina and Rockhampton in 1982. No signs saying you couldn't stay overnight. Little sheltered picnic tables, but not a lot of shade otherwise. We found no other facilities anywhere nearby, and there are no real towns between the two cities - only one isolated store on the roadside and a few petrol stations.

After Marlborough we came across two petrol stations, one just off the highway on a side road, and one on the highway. They must have been having a price war, for that was the cheapest fuel we sighted.

We reached Rockhampton around 1:30 PM, and booked into our usual motel, the Ambassador Motor Inn north at 355 Yaamba Road (Bruce Highway), one block before the Bruce Highway turns off Yaamba Road to divert around the city. (Stephen and Madonna Lee, 07 4928 2222). We walked the short distance to the large Rockhampton Shopping Fair, where we did some shopping, then ate at Sizzlers.

Around 4:30, we checked what was on at the cinema. While there was nothing that interested us, we did find a Seniors discount membership at this chain of cinemas. If an appropriate cinema were closer than 150 km to us, it would be very likely to draw us to a few visits.

Sunday 6 April 2003.
We drove along the Rockhampton riverside, checking the new facilities and parkland along there, much of which was under construction when we last visited several years ago. The area is looking very nice, flanked by many older but restored buildings. The information centre is in the old stone Customs House. It has a large museum-designed exhibit of how the building was used in the past. Very helpful people looking after the place, just as last time we visited. Leaving town, we noticed again that, even if you've missed seeing the many statues of beef cattle, you know the area is beef country when bank advertisements proclaim "There is a bank that understands beef." We drove through the countryside in perfect sunny weather, a reminder of the Queensland tourism slogan, "Beautiful one day, perfect the next."

South of Rockhamption, we were often alongside the railway tracks, and saw a number of two-locomotive 80-wagon coal trains, with another two locomotives mid-load. These would have been headed for Gladstone, although whether for export or for the power station and bauxite plant there, we didn't know. We saw two people riding recumbent bicycles, and two regular bicycle tourists, down on the five the previous day. That is touring the hard way.

We stopped to share a sandwich near the Marmor Hotel and Boyne River rest area, and again at Miriam Vale. The small town of Miriam Vale had a tourist information place, and some nice facilities near the railway, but we found the picnic area after we had eaten.

Heading southeast from Miriam Vale, off the highway, we negotiated several kilometres of gravel road (with the kind of pointy rocks that often eat tyres) before reaching a somewhat better road that took us on into the Town of 1770 by way of Agnes Water.

1770 is a small backpacker and boat tourist area, at the southern mouth of a river, which is protected by a sandbar. A number of older weekend cottages have been converted to tourist accomodation. The headland is steep, and some very expensive homes have been built to take advantage of the sea views. A nature park occupies the headland. Further south are a number of housing developments along the coast on sand dunes, with a short walk to the beach. We drove through a few of them, amused at the huge piles of sand and the large walls of interlocking concrete blocks attempting to constrain the sand into hills on which to build houses. We are dubious about housing estates built on sand dunes... seems very shifty to us.

Continuing south, we took the alternate route, roughly paralleling the Bruce Highway but a bit closer to the coast. Most of this road is in better condition than we expected, and looked recently upgraded.

At Bundaberg we entered town from an unfamiliar direction and took some time to get oriented to locate the Sizzler, and a nearby motel. We couldn't remember, or find, the motel we had used on a previous trip, and we ended up off the main road at the Alexandra Park Motor Inn, which was much quieter and very pleasant. We had spotted some motels on the main street, so when this one nominated a price, Jean said we were looking for something cheaper. Asked how much, she quoted a price we had seen elsewhere, and was given it. We were very happy with the room.

Naturally we again went to Sizzler for dinner, and this time ordered a chicken burger with salad bar each, and a bottle of wine. At the last moment, Jean recalled she now had a Seniors Card. This place gave a 20% discount, and they applied it to the whole meal, including the wine. That wasn't hard to take.

Monday 7 April 2003.
From Bundaberg, we headed for Caloundra. We refuelled before leaving town, and headed through sugar and cattle areas, where flat land alternated with gentle hills. Eric didn't like the first town at which we tried to stop past Maryborough, as he couldn't work out where to park so we could use the toilets. (Jean: I told him where, but he didn't follow my instructions. On our second pass through town, someone else had parked in the same area, so it was more obvious. This was one of those towns with service roads paralleling the main road, and angle parking reached from the service roads - a very good design but confusing to the uninitiated.)

We stopped at an information centre at Barambah Ridge winery, next to a Matilda fuel stop under reconstruction. The information centre had a wonderful herb and native foods garden, all labelled with plant information. The winery sign said "A meal without wine is breakfast". We never did find the Matilda service station at which Jean was mugged by the ducks many years ago.

The information centre at Tiaro had some great local crafts for sale. Eric was taken by the wooden eggs. We got a sandwich to share, and when we ate it at midday at a roadside stop a few km before Gympie, found it great. Our memory of Gympie (from 4 years ago) includes a bridge over a river, but we didn't spot the bridge this time. Perhaps the main road has been rerouted? Moving the river seems unlikely.

Continuing on, we managed to find the right exit off the motorway and headed for Noosa through pleasant countryside. The Sunshine Coast area looked far too developed for our taste. Jean, who was driving, said "I don't think I like civilisation, even if the roads are better."

We skipped around Noosaville to the extent we could. Good signposting made up for the map and navigation deficiencies, and the traffic (though heavy for us) was not as bad as expected. We tried to check many of the other beachside areas on the way down the coast past Noosa.

Much of the area had very little space between the hills (national park?) and the dunes, so there were only a few streets of houses, a mixture of older places (some little more than shacks) and newer ones. Most of the residential areas are set well back from the shore, behind heavy-vegetated dunes. Numerous paths have been built through the dunes to allow beach access. In a few places the road runs along a clifftop, with great views of the surf. We didn't stop in any of the occasional parking spots to get a better view, because at this point a large black cloud began raining on us. The cloud didn't last long; by the time we'd gone past the interesting views, it was behind us.

Coolum Beach featured high rise and garden-style developments, much higher density. Further south the flat land opens up, allowing more development, with shopping areas as well as housing.

Our plans to eat at the Caloundra Sizzler were set aback when Jean finally found the list of locations and we discovered there wasn't one there; the Sunshine Coast one was several suburbs back at Maroochydore. We contemplated returning, but it all seemed too complicated, and Jean remembered Maroochydore as being difficult to drive in. Instead we continued, after a refuelling stop. We are most impressed with the fuel prices in this area, at least 10 cents a litre less than at home.

Glasshouse Mountain Road took us back into a more country area, although it parallels the faster motorway. Glasshouse Mountain is a spectacular rock. We also passed Steve (The Crocodile Hunter) Irwin's Australia Zoo, which made good use of his TV publicity to draw in the tourists - if you were in any doubt, the huge sign of Steve wrestling a crocodile was a definite clue.

The back road went through a couple of very small towns, and eventually deposited us into an industrial and shopping area of Caboolture. We spotted the Sizzler and immediate began looking for a motel. Spotted one just next door, at a tavern. This place turned out to be one of only two motels in the area, so we were not surprised to find that it was a bit overpriced for what we got. We weren't thrilled with the motel, as the room lights were not great, and power points were very scarce. The Commander phone system didn't allow Jean's modem to work (I didn't bother trying after that), so Jean collected her email using her mobile phone.

Jean managed to once again get a Seniors discount on our Sizzler meal and wine, so we stuffed ourselves on salad bar. We attempted to check the news, but the TV at the motel didn't seem to receive the ABC. It is of little surprise that soon after we returned to the motel, we were asleep.

Tuesday 8 April 2003.
A newsagency was right opposite the hotel, so we were able to get a paper easily. We couldn't find an appropriate map, but the newsagent said it was an easy run to the Brisbane bypass road.

We waited to depart until 9 AM, to avoid early morning traffic. Down the road to the Sunshine motorway, then the Gateway Motorway, over the Gateway toll bridge, then onto the Pacific Motorway, where we spotted the road to the Ikea store without problems. Totally amazing navigation performance for us. Wandered around Ikea, but the shelving we were particularly seeking was totally out of stock; more was expected in a few days.

After an unsatisfactory lunch at the small mall nearby, we were on the road again, and again we didn't have any navigation problems getting to the Gold Coast. We saw many building lots being sited around artificial waterways, of which there were a maze behind the coastal strip. Mosquito breeding ponds, we decided.

Portobellos (where we had booked over the internet) turned out to be one block away from where we joined the Gold Coast Highway, and was also within walking distance of the Sizzler, and of the Mercure where Jean's conference was being held. Portobellos is a complex of serviced "garden style" apartments with a swimming pool and underground parking. It seems fairly typical of one type of tourist accommodation in the area (the other type is high rise). With a minimum 3-night stay during the week, the price was very good. Although it's a bit more on weekends (and, one assumes, a lot more during holiday periods), we couldn't see how the owners were making any money on it, considering what we know of property values and the cost of running an establishment like that (not too different from the resort we live in).

Across the road (and a moat ... or maybe a canal) was a large Pacific Fair shopping complex. This place was a maze of little streets all connected to an indoor mall. Very strange. They had dangerous food places, like Royal Copenhagen ice cream, and not only a Darrell Lee chocolate shop, but also a specialty store selling handmade chocolates.

Wednesday 9 April 2003.
Eric went for an early morning walk south along the Gold Coast highway, discovered a number of unlikely stores including a Dick Smith and a Jaycar's hobby electronics store, and collected papers including the local Gold Coast Bulletin. This paper reported glowingly on the Joh measure of building industry, namely the number of cranes visible on the horizon (around 24).

During our later beach walk, a stranger greeted Jean. She turned out to be one of the attendees at the conference, now resident in Adelaide, who had known Jean from Sydney.

A $10 bus pass was good for all day, and we were very pleased not to be driving in the heavy traffic and down various one way streets in bumper to bumper conditions. The area seemed full of tall, skinny apartment blocks all along the coast. Sort of like The Strip in Las Vegas, except no casinos (well, not entirely true - there is a Jupiters). Many small shops, especially surf shops, and a number of major malls and shopping centres.

At Australia Fair in Southport we went seeking the Office Works to get them started printing the first few copies of Jean's new book, to go on sale at the conference the next day. They promised an earlier job than we expected, so we wandered around the Australia Fair area. Found far too many bookshops as well as some other items actually on our ToDo list, including a cheap digital camera as a replacement for the failing Kodak DC240 we have been using for the past few years. After collecting Jean's books from Office Works, we caught the bus back to Portobello.

Thursday 10 April 2003.
We wandered off to the Grand Mercure hotel at the Oasis shopping centre, where the Australian Online Documentation Conference (AODC) was being held. When Jean was settled in at her stand, Eric wandered around the Oasis, looking at various upmarket shops and not finding the grotty types of place he finds more attractive. He spent the day shopping at electronics stores and book stores in the area and later went off to visit a friend.

Friday 11 April 2003.
Raining. We planned a late start, around 9 AM, so as to miss some of the peak hour traffic. Retracing our route up the Pacific Highway, we got caught in a long traffic jam caused by road construction near the airport. Rain continued, not heavy, but overcast and dull.

We stopped at the Avocado Motel in Childers, which overlooked an avocado orchard and had a pretty outlook. A typical old, not fancy place, with a comfortable new bed; just our sort of place. The motel had a food service, but we didn't feel like a full meal, so Eric foraged some supplies from a shop down the road.

Saturday 12 April 2003.
Drove all morning from Childers at 8 AM. We stopped for apple slices and a newspaper at Gin Gin, which looked a good spot to stop on future trips, as there were more motels and facilities than we remembered. (Last time through here we were traumatised by replacing two tyres we'd blown on the road from Bundaberg, so weren't paying much attention to the town.)

It was very peaceful on the road, as there was little traffic. We did see two more bicycle tourists.

We arrived at Rockhampton just after midday and stopped at the Ambassador motel. The run to Mackay would have made too long a day for us, though others might do it easily. We went to the mall for lunch and then ollapsed and read the papers and our novels.

Sunday 13 April 2003.
We had intended to take the old highway from Marlborough to Sarina, to see what it is like, but rain was threatening and Jean recalled that the road may flood in places, so we stayed on the Bruce Highway. Got home in the early afternoon.

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