Awoke too another drizzly overcast morning but not to worry we made most of the situation and began some schoolwork for the kids shortly after breakfast for the next few hours .
Us boys were getting a little on the nose so we all jumped in the showers for a scrub.
A quick lunch of toasted chicken and cheese sangas and a little bit of turkish bread and we set off in the cruiser to explore up the road .
I'm guessing the road to Maryborough (Cooloora Rd ) has on recently been asphalted or at least resealed as there were no lines and still in good condition as have most of the Queensland roads we have so far travelled.
Maryborough was our first glimpse of sugar cane in the flesh and its easy to see how this made the town years ago with a train track right into town possibly to the port on the Mary river to be hauled away.
Other than that it was a beautiful old town with many modern supermarkets and amenities .
A call in to a local tyre dealer wasn't particularly helpful in trying to source some decent all terrain or not so aggressive mud terrain tyres before we hit the cape next month.
Judging on recent conditions late rain may prove a little tricky without better tread.
I got a call from the Brisbane R & J store from paul saying they needed a hand for a few weeks while staff are on leave so that will give me a much better price on tyres in town owing to freight and competition .
Only thing now is to find some accommodation close to stapylton that doesn't cost the earth or is too far away from there either.
There is plenty of work up this way especially in harvest work be it cotton or sugar for drivers labourers and certainly plenty of local chef work , i was to do some fencing work for Cliff here in Tin Can Bay on his farm but the ground was soaked and would easily bog the tractor in the lower paddocks so maybe i would come back at a later date for that.
Hervey Bay was a much bigger city than all of us expected wit pretty much a suburb feel to most of it .
The marina was the first port of call , we looked at the breakwater and the many , many boats harboured inside some worth a pretty penny i am sure , with many others catering to dolphin and whale watching along the coast and even more ferry boats to crross to Fraser Island from this side.
The kids especially liked the giant whale out the front and the realistic (very realistic) crocodile on the jetty along with quite a few birds on pontoon towers .
plenty of food choices here but we skipped the coffee and cake and kicked back in the local boat club on the harbour .
They easily took us for southerners as dash was in a tank top and probably our still untanned skin colour ,lol.
A lovely fairly cheap meal with good portion size very friendly staff all round .
The cafe on the other side of the club was our next choice so we had coffee and dessert there while i claimed my massive winnings from the keno games i had put on woohooo 2 X $2 .
it was well after 8 when we left so we decided to walk the 868 metre long pier in the dark , it was well lit up ,but unbelievably long but it needed to be to cover the massive sand bar here and years ago it was actually 246 metres longer with a head to accomodate the trains unloading sugar cane , coal and timber .
We watched the locals bring in some wobbygong shark and school shark in good numbers and heard how one caught a 16 ft tiger shark earlier in the moth which we verified online later on.
The night was getting a little chilly and certainly dark owing to the lack of daylight savings time ( wake up qld and get with the program !) so we took off for home after a short drive along the Esplanade still busy feeding and satisfying the northern thirst .
we got back to our Tin Can Bay site an hour and 30 minutes later driving through some short bursts of torrential rain all buggered and soon were all asleep.
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