Qld - Airlie Beach

Well, here we are back on the east coast at Airlie Beach after traveling the longest distance we have covered over a few days on our entire trip. In the past eight days from Darwin to Mackay, we have travelled 2,350 kilometres with a fuel bill of $847.00, our most expensive week of fuel so far.
We stayed at Sapphire for two days on the way and spent the time fossicking for gems and found a few sapphires and zircons, only small ones but it is a lot of fun.

Our weather for the past few months has been sunny with barely a cloud in the sky. We spent two days enjoying the stunning Airlie Beach area and visiting with my cousin Jeff and his family. Then the weather changed. We had 300cm of rain in a few hours, cutting the roads north and south from Airlie Beach. The caravan park roads became water ways with kids floating down them on their boogie boards. The washers and dryers were running overtime as people were trying to dry their soaked clothes and bedding. Some of the families in tents were flooded out and moved into cabins, others just went home. Water was lying in the fields and the sugar cane farmers that were in the middle of harvesting will now have to wait for them to dry out.
Day four after the storm and still no blue sky.

So much for the Queensland slogan - “beautiful one day, perfect the next!”