Yepoon is a lovely wee seaside town about half an hour from Rockhampton, the beef capital of Australia. They both received a battering from Cyclone Debbie but were back on their feet now. We stayed right on the beach, which was vast and covered with more shells than you could possibly imagine.

Planned a couple of days, but then a timing issue servicing the car meant we had to stay a day longer.

I dropped it into Toyota, and as we were sitting there waiting for our transport back to the tent I glanced up at the telly. Breakfast TV. Not seen that for ages. The weather guy comes on. Now we’ve just had about three weeks of lovely weather, which has been fan-bloody-tastic. Although ironically it didn’t really matter as we’d not been camping for most of that time.

Anyway, he starts talking about this enormous rain storm that’s about to sweep over the east coast for a couple of days, completely drenching all these areas that are just recovering from the deluge Debbie had dropped on them.

Oh, I thought. That’s here. That’s where we are right now. Shit.

We had another day of sitting inside the tent, and miraculously it cleared for a couple of hours the following morning, so we scarpered. Two hours from decision, to go. Our best yet. A bloke in a caravan walked past and told us he had been watching our pack up, thought it was very efficient. I was chuffed myself anyway, but that was the icing on the cake. Thanks mate!

After spending so much time around the Brisbane area, we were keen to start shifting up the coast a bit quicker. And with the Cyclone season coming to an end, it was time to scoot north.

The countryside was beginning to change now. Everywhere you looked there were sugarcane fields stretching towards the horizon, generally with some volcanic mountain in the distance. It was very pretty. Rail lines running alongside the road, right next to the sugar cane fields. The transport system for all the farms, taking the cane from field to factory, before processing and distribution all over the world.

I knew there was sugar cane up in Queensland, but I hadn’t realised just how much.
Two interesting signs I saw on the drive.

– SLOW MOVING TRAINS WITH EXPLOSIVES FOR THE NEXT TWO KILOMETRES
– QUEENSLAND LAWN MOWER RACING CHAMIONSHIPS

Straya mate 😉

So we caned it past the cane, and stopped as the sun was setting in a town called Sarina.

This was only to be a quick stop-over, but we discovered a little place where they explained how sugar is refined. So we went along in the morning and learned that it’s an incredibly complicated process. We also learned that ‘raw’ or ‘demerara’ sugar, which people tend to think is a wee bit better than white sugar because it’s less processed, is in fact MORE processed than the white stuff. Ha!

Also it’s not ‘raw’ at all. Raw sugar is not fit for human consumption. Marketing bastards.

Anyhoo, sugar rush behind us it was only a couple of hours to our next destination. We were heading back up into the mountains again, aiming for Eungella National Park, and hopefully, and encounter with the elusive Platypus – the strangest animal in the world.