18 July 2011 - Black River Stadium, Queensland

We are now in our second week here at the rodeo stadium but today was the first whole day we had spent here (well, almost whole day) to find that it is not quite the quiet and peaceful place we believed it to be. Builders were busy at work in the men’s amenities block soon after seven o’clock; we discovered that they are dismantling the cold shower rooms to install more toilet stalls. By the time I checked the noise out, they had moved into the ladies; the builder was polite enough to sing while I used the facilities.

Dark clouds hung over the ranges to the west and remained there even when the sun shone through later in the day. We spent the morning catching up with administration and repairs. When we had the landcruiser serviced in Ipswich, we had been told that one high beam was not functioning, however they did not have a replacement light bulb in stock. Given that we do not travel at night, there has been no urgency to have this fixed. Bear in mind that there is no such thing as a regular WOF (warrant of fitness) for vehicles here in Queensland, simply a requirement to have a safety certificate issued when you sell a vehicle. In Mackay we had sourced a light bulb at the local Toyota dealer, and it had been sitting in the glove box ever since. Today was the day! This small job that should have been relatively simple, was a little more complex than first thought. It involved the removal of the battery system to access the the fitting, not just the bulb, requiring replacement. However this morning Chris had both the time and the inclination, only to find after all the fluffing about that there had been nothing wrong with the bulb; it was a fuse fault. He could have had this fixed weeks ago, without the outlay of the expense of this part.

We spent the morning phoning the caravan repair people without success. Finally when Josh had established that Lotus in Melbourne had not even dispatched the drain fitting, Chris phoned Melbourne and asked them to put a hold on sending it. We will try and get a part here and do the repair ourselves. All this messing around for nothing!

Bushland Beach

We did pop out for a drive to Bushland Beach. We had passed the turn off to this every time we traveled in to Townsville on the Bruce Highway, and I was curious to see what was down the road. Bushland Beach is a fast growing suburb between the highway and the coast. The tide was out, and the exposed flats were expansive, and offered a different aspect of Magnetic Island and down to the Many Peaks Range which shelter the Town Common National Park from the coral sea. There are a number of residential developments sprouting up with lovely houses, most quite modest but very appealing.

Black River behind our camp

When we arrived back at camp, we took the opportunity to walk down to the Black River which runs behind the camp. I paddled  through the shallow ribbons of the clear running waterway, and then after reaching the top of the river bank on the return, was greeted rather vigorously by a Jack Russell who had also been paddling in the mud. Just as well we had planned to do a load of washing again tomorrow morning!