29 June 2011 - Central Tourist Park, Mackay, Queensland

Rain fell through the night, heavily before we tucked into bed. The General Gordon was rocking, with the help of a DJ and it was only Tuesday night. Perhaps there was a crowd of sugar cane workers in unwinding after work? We will never know but we did enjoy the mix of music that filtered through the ventilation in our van. By the time I put my book down, the music had already faded so the frivolity did not bother us unduly.

The road back to the Bruce Highway and then north to Mackay was less than thirty kilometres, and we made our way to this Tourist Park on the north side of the river, detouring to Porters, a supplier of construction products. We were after a fitting to match a piece of pipe Chris had picked up a week earlier to make an outlet for our grey water. The plumbing department of this amazing store that has been operating since the 1880s had just the right part, and dazzled us with the extent of goods on offer. Of course Bunnings offers similar products, but Porters do it with style!

The camp here has 120 self-contained units and 100 caravan sites.  We read the other day that Mackay is bursting at the seams with workers requiring accommodation, and in need of extra “beds”. Many of the occupants here are those very people described in that article, those working in the mines and supporting services. There is a nice swimming pool, although not quite as classy as that at Gracemere, however no one is making use of the pools at this time of the year. It is winter, even if the temperatures of late have been in the early 20s. Again, like Gracemere, the amenities are old, but very clean and big enough to serve the customers well. We are within walking distance of the CBD but the rain or threat of the same, does not encourage an outing on foot.

After setting up and having lunch, making use of the electricity and using our toasted sandwich maker, we headed back across the river, firstly to visit the caravan accessories place we had spied as we entered the city, and again back to Porters to seek a tap handle so that we can take water from taps in parklands that have had their tops off to stop such practices. This is done of course to deter young vandals, not such fine persons as ourselves!

We also found the Toyota dealer who was able to provide us with a replacement bulb for one of the headlights. The bulb is more than that, a whole fitting costing more than a simple filament that one would expect.

En route, we fell upon a shop called Vegies Unlimited and stopped to check their prices out. Bananas at nearly $13 a kilo, tomatoes at nearly $9, apples at nearly $5… such prices have made us pause and consider whether we actually need these particular food items. This greengrocer was like Pandora’s Box. The further we ventured into the store, the more bargains we found, the more we unloaded those first seen and replaced with better. We exited with a large bag of spuds, carrots, tomatoes, an avocado, apples, pears, a portion of pawpaw and a beautiful "topless acid free” pineapple. We indulged in the pineapple after our wonderful dinner of butter chicken, rice, carrots and broccoli. It is years since I ate such a large amount of fresh pineapple, what a treat! And so appropriate in this subtropical region.

We were dismayed to learn on Facebook that our wonderfully athletic India had broken her wrist playing soccer at school; we were glad to touch base with her mother to hear that matters were under control even if still unpleasant for our granddaughter. In fact it was quite a night of catch up; we ended up speaking with all three of our kids and their partners on Skype, always a pleasure even if there is sometimes less than happy news to impart.