We packed up as quickly as we could – it was too wet for the kids to go out and ride bikes or anything. Then we backtracked towards Springsure and Emerald. Just after leaving Rolleston, we had to go through water across the road – another indication of just how much water was flowing in the rivers and creeks around here at present. When we got to Emerald, we stopped at a shopping centre to pick up some groceries and some new bike tyres (2 of the bikes needed some maintenance). We also posted some birthday cards for Nana while we were there (whose birthday is this Sunday). We then drove a bit further along to Morton Park in Emerald where there is a giant copy of Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ painting. We got a photo standing under it. This is a sunflower growing region – we had seen the crops of them alongside the road as we drove.

After Emerald, we headed north towards Clermont. This was a big mining town, with the huge Blair Athol mine just nearby. We had hoped to do a tour of the mine, but they only ran on a Tues and Fri (we were driving through on a Wed). Still we got to see quite a bit of the large machines in the industrial areas of the small towns we drove through. And we might be able to do a mine tour over in WA. We did have a short stop at Clermont and saw the monument to the 1916 flood which occurred there, killing 65 people – the worst disaster in Australia at the time. The monument was a tree with a line marking how high the water rose – 4.3m. A tree was chosen for the monument because so many people survived by climbing trees.

We then turned NE and headed along the Peak Downs Hwy towards Mackay. We drove past some cotton growing areas, and past the Peak Downs Mountain Range, which had some very unusually shaped boulders. We passed through some small towns called Coppabella, Nebo, Epsom and Eton. As we were driving, I was trying to work out where we were staying that night. Even though it meant driving a bit longer again that day, we wanted to get close to Mackay so we could stay somewhere for 2 nights at least. We had hoped to stay at Cape Hillsborough NP campground, but it was full. There   were a couple of other campgrounds in that area, but there was no power and generators were not allowed. We wanted to stay somewhere nice and close to water to have a rest day. We tried a place at Lake Kinchant, but they didn’t answer. Then we tried a place at Armstrong Beach, near Sarina, just south of Mackay. We got their last powered site. So we drove from Eton to Sarina, and didn’t have to go in to Mackay. Then Armstrong Beach was 10mins from Sarina towards the coast. We arrived about 6.30pm. The first thing we noticed when we got out of the car was how much warmer it was – being a little bit extra north and closer to the coast. We didn’t need a jumper, even at that time of night. The friendly managers helped us reverse into our spot. We had a spag bol dinner from the frozen dinner stash and got ready for bed. We got to say hello to Kermie the green frog, who sits on the wall just outside the ladies toilet every night.