Well this turned out to be a real hoot; been through a couple of hail storms which are now quite boring so thought we should give a cyclone a go just to get the old adrenalin pumping, I was never quite sure what adrenalin was but after this episode I can certainly tell you what color it is.
The park we stayed at was the Andergrove Van Park on the northern side of Mackay, the park sits about 8km from Mackay City and 4km from Mount Pleasant shopping center. The park is well maintained and the owners are very sociable and good to deal with; nothing is to much trouble and they are very eager to please. The park has a pool and is a Top Tourist; rates are $29 per night less the top tourist 10% if you are a member, even if you are not a member the rate of $174 for the week is pretty good.
Our site above and this is typical of most sites with concrete pads for the van wheels, awning slab and runners for the car to the awning side of the van. We were booked and paid for 7 nights but on the Saturday (6th day) we left the park to take shelter from the pending cyclone. We towed the van out west of Mackay and over the Clark Range in to Nebo; we stayed out at the Nebo showground along with another 4 vans that had pulled out of Mackay and headed in the same direction as us.
It was a wild and wooly night even at Nebo with several trees and large limbs from trees falling at the showground; we all made it through without any damage but it is not something we would want to go through again.
We headed back to Mackay on the Sunday and to get the 100k in to town took about 4 hours; we were delayed by a lot of debris on the road and on one section a low hanging power line. Above is the same site we were on in the Andergrove Park so compare that to the first one; most of the caravan park was in the same sad state; the park had an abundance of fan palms all of which had suffered damage of some sort and required trimming back.
we headed off on one of the days on the Pioneer Valley scenic drive which ends at the Eungella (pronounced yungala) Range & township; the range is above and has an incline of 12% so quite steep and some of the bends are hairpin and not the place for larger vans as noted on the signpost some 10km before the range.
Camper trailers and maybe small vans but a definite no-no for the big ones; there are campgrounds at the top and in the national park.
Mackay harbour; there is a good marina front here with several cafes, restaurants, fish & chip shop (good fish here) and a pub.
The photo above is taken from the large deck of the Pinnacle Pub which is on the Pioneer Valley drive; make sure you get to this place either on your way or on your way back at lunchtime. The pies are all made on the premises and are very very good.
The above and below photos show why we stayed at the Nebo showgrounds; the sign should read “Don’t Stay At All” Caravan Park; even staying at the showgrounds had power, water with tiled showers and plenty of hot water. By the way there are no camping signs at the grounds but the council don’t seem to mind; it was in one area of the grounds a caravan park as there are plenty of caravan park style power heads and taps to connect up to.
Nice park to stay at in Nebo if you are blind and have no sense of smell.
“Excuse me please”; above is just on of several rigs we met between Rockhampton and Mackay. These rigs carrying mine equipment have police as well as wide load escorts and you must clear the road completely and stop, failure to do so earns you a ticket to the policeman's ball.
We are currently in Bowen until the 9th April then on to Townsville; from there a couple of stops on our way to Cairns for a week before we head up to Cape York. We catch the Trinity Bay boat from the Cape to Thursday Island then launch to Horn Island before flying back in to Cairns; from there we head west (I think).
Keep well and drive safely and hope to catch some of you on the road somewhere in this vast country of ours.
Love and warm regards – David & Linda – The DavLin Rig
