There was overnight rain and early morning thunder in Dalby. After packing up we drove to the Urban Paddock Cafe for breakfast, but were again disappointed by the quality of our meals. This is the number one cafe in Dalby and has been good in the past.
The drive was only 250kms but in parts was on narrow, pot holed roads with lots of puddles. The light rain did not last long so there was no risk of flooding on the many floodways. On the New England Hwy there were several kilometres of roadwork, some controlled by long-delay traffic lights.
We stopped in Blackbutt to explore the bakery. Blue kept anxiously looking at the bakery door where Anita had disappeared.
Blackbutt is a place we could visit again rather than just drive through. Perhaps we will return for a festival one day.
Along the D’Aguiler Hwy there were sections of hilly winding road where the speed limit was reduced to 60kph. This helped keep other vehicles from tailgating our slow moving caravan. We turned off the highway onto the Kilcoy-Beerwah Rd and stopped at the Cruice Park rest area. A sign indicates a maximum stay of 20 hours, but about a dozen tents, vehicles and camper trailers were set up as permanent structures for presumably people who are otherwise homeless.
We had booked into the Military Jetty Caravan Park in Caloundra, opposite Golden Beach. The park allows dogs in school holidays, and is only 3kms from the Caloundra RSL where we will see the Beccy Cole & Adam Harvey concert tomorrow night. This is an old caravan park with lots of permanents, including dogs, two cats and bush turkeys. One permanent structure has been badly damaged by fire.
The short Military Jetty is across the Esplanade, with newly installed tidal monitoring equipment. The waterway is Pumicestone Passage which had a sandbar breakthrough in January during a storm. This has affected the tidal flow through the Passage, causing sand erosion along Golden Beach.
I saw a fisher on the jetty catch a skinny fish about a foot long. He threw it back as it was a barracuda and these fish are prone to biting fingers. Blue walked halfway along the jetty but froze and would not walk back. When he stopped he realised there were cracks between the boards and I had to carry him back.
We went to a Thai restaurant at a local shopping centre in search of spicy food. Our meal was not up to the quality of our local Thai back home, but it made a nice change from pub food. There is no photo of the sun setting over the water, but the sun set over the shopping centre.
Committed Travellers 