Thursday already? Where does the time go? We have been rather busy since being here as I have upgraded my mobile broadband internet unit, and is it faster, my word. Between making the actual purchase, getting it up and running, and organising an external aerial patch cable for it I haven’t had a great deal of time for anything else. I couldn’t believe how much difference the external aerial made to this unit, it took me about 3 days to actually get the patch cable and I was cursing, of sorts, that the new unit wasn’t any faster than the older one was, although it often tried, then the external aerial was connected. Just to explain why the aerial is so important:- We live in a caravan, with an aluminium cover all over that is earthed electrically, and this alone will limit the amount of signalling that will pass to the unit, so an external aerial, I consider, is a must especially when in fringe areas as well, and would you believe my connection speed multiplied by 5 times or more and I actually reached the magic figure of 8MEG as advertised, very surprising.

So now it is back to a normal life of enjoying the relaxation, and thinking about where we are going on our next legs of travel.

We are back on the coast near Bundaberg, but a little further north this time, and will be here for a couple of weeks, well we have booked in for two weeks anyway and it looks like a nice enough place to stop for a while. After our couple of weeks here and a week or so chasing K & A wherever they are, it will be time to start thinking about heading south once again. We must catch K & A before we head south because if we don’t see them down south while there, and then we head to NT and WA next year we won’t get much of a chance to see them again for a while. We will be able to get out and do a bit of walking and bike riding while here as there is a track that goes from here all the way to Bargara. I didn’t get to do the full length from Bargara when we were there so I will get the chance to see how much from this end I missed out on.

TC we will be popping in for a visit while back in the area, so you will hear from us.

What a great place to just relax, there is a bit of walking to be done, get back to that, there are plenty of other travellers stop here, so plenty of company, and plenty of well kept grounds, green grass, hence plenty of bird life. It is unfortunate that the weather hasn’t been a little better, it has been overcast and a little rain, but we can’t complain too much can we. The walking track:- There is a 6K walking track from the camping area around to the boat ramps off to the side of the lake and we went for a walk on it on Monday. The track is rather strenuous being up and down rather steep hills and gives one the impression for a while that we were on the wrong track, seeming to go in the wrong direction, but it does wander away from the lake proper for a while to transverse around a small part of the lake, and we ended up walking about 2K to get 100 meters across the water. We didn’t get to the end of the track because we had in mind that we had to return from where we came so we had to reserve enough energy to do so. All in all it was good for exercise, and that leads to another disadvantage of the bad weather, we are very hesitant to do any more waking because of the possibility of getting caught in the rain.

We did a little sight-seeing yesterday, Linda wanted to go into Gin Gin to do a little shopping so we decided to go for a short drive along the Mount Perry road to see a Tunnel called Boolboonda tunnel. This is a tunnel originally built for a rail line to Mt. Perry which is no longer there, so it is now used for a road way and traffic actually drives through it. The tunnel is supposedly the longest unsupported man built tunnel in the southern hemisphere and was worth the drive.

Now it looks like a couple of days left to just take things extremely easy, but try to get in a little walking when possible.

Elliot Heads was a nice enough small place, being close enough to Bundaberg to go shopping, close enough to Bargara to go visit Tony and Brenda, and the walking/riding track did get a fair bit of use. It was about 3K long which made it a reasonable walk, for me anyway, but was a little short for a bike ride, I believe one day they will extend it all the way to Bargara. The map (see map) of our trip today will show how Elliott Heads and Bargara are close to Bundaberg and east on the coast, north of Bargara is another small place called Burnett Heads where we are planning on moving to when we leave Lake Monduran.

Lake Monduran, yes we made a move of 90K today to the lake (see map) and will be here for a week. It is going to be a very quiet week here as about the only thing to do in this spot is to fish the lake, but me not being a fisherman doesn’t leave me with much else to do, which is the only way things should be. They tell me there is a good walk around the lake so I guess this will get a fair testing, by foot anyway as it certainly looks too hilly to venture with the bike.

A big move today of about 25K, as Elliot Heads is also on the coast near Bundaberg, but a little South. This seems to be a very friendly place and we are looking forward to a very quiet time here, there aren’t even any shops so Linda is going to have to work out here shopping fix trips well, as we will have to go into Bundaberg, and that will not happen every day. There not being much to do here I can see that the rather long walking/riding track along the coast is going to get quite some use. We arrived here a bit early today so the setting up is already done, being 2:45 PM, so it is time to relax for the rest of the day and do nothing but what I am doing now.

Dare I say it again-: It has been a week again, we are not doing a great deal while here, but where is the time going. We may be a little more quiet over the next few days though as it looks like we may be rained in, hopefully it will be over by the time we need to pack up on Friday.

Yesterday, Sunday, was as usual a day of rest, and I do mean a do nothing day with bike rides and exercise type walking being given a miss for the day, and Linda only preparing a not much to do meal etc. This nothing but sitting around probably prompted me to say to Linda last night “Wouldn’t it be nice for something exciting to happen to us”, and her response was “Here we are living in a caravan, basically in a different place regularly, getting to see all over the country and meeting all sorts of different people, and you want something exciting to happen”. I guess that does sum it all up, so I guess it must just have been the more-so idleness yesterday that got to me, but I guess I will just have to get used to it over the next couple of days. One thing I haven’t done while here is to place my sign out the front advertising help with TV reception, so I haven’t had any jobs along that nature either. The reason is simply because there are too many problems in this area to easily explain away to people without the appropriate aerials, so I thought it might be best just left alone.

It has been very nice catching up with Tony and Brenda while here as it has been e few years since we have met up with them. We have visited several times and intend a few more before leaving as it has been extremely good catching up on old times, and new. It has been no problem with the new times for Tony as he has been one person I do know regularly reads this blog, but we do have some catching up to do with their life of late.

Today we went for a look at one other nearby caravan park that we were interested in visiting sometime at Elliott Heads only a few Kilometres south from here. We had heard a few reports about this park and a look revealed that it looks like quite a nice quiet park to stay at, so we have now booked in for a week after we leave Bargara. There are a couple of other parks in the area that we are also going to have a look at with the idea that we might stay at them also, seeing we have a few weeks to kill before starting our trek back to Melbourne for Xmas. If we find these parks, and others like them, are satisfactory we may consider just touring round them on future winter visits as they are generally cheaper than those of major areas.

Now that we are on the road again I must get into the habit of putting down words more often, I know Tony will be happy as he is a regularly reader and has noted that there hasn’t been much lately. Anyway, we are getting setup once again after being rather fatigued yesterday and decided to just take things at a leisurely pace this time. We have been to visit Tony and Brenda today and it was nice to see them again after such a long time. I think we are going to see a fair bit of them while we are here, but we will also have to get in some sightseeing. There is a rather good walking/riding track along the foreshore so there should be no excuse to get some riding and walking in as well. I have also hopefully overcome the TV reception problems by placing my pole with aerials in an open space behind the caravan away from the trees and pegged to the ground. I am now getting good signal strength, but after dark will tell as the signal seems to drop off a little when the sun goes down as it did last night, and I was obviously on the border line before dark.

We are once again back on the move, and after sitting for a few month again the last two days packing up and moving have been rather testing not being used to it. We are certainly not as young as we used to be and it is starting to tell, I guess we will get used to it again once we have made a couple of moves. We are now at Bargara, on the coast about 10K east of Bundaberg and at this stage are not quite as happy as we thought we would be. The site we are on is not the best, considered to be a grassed site, but is mainly dirt where the grass has worn away. This park, or area, is also noted for it having problems with TV reception, and with all the large trees around the caravan park I am not at all surprised with the poor reception. I had recollections of getting better reception last time we were here but then we are stuck further in amongst the trees this time and the reception is very poor, I do think all I have to do is find better mounting position for the aerial, but spots are very limited. I guess satellite is the alternative option, I will have a go at it tomorrow. When we checked in we had a decision to make as they wanted the full two weeks in payment so, as we had decided to stay for two weeks we had no option to pay, so now we will just have to be happy with the situation even if it means nothing but relaxing while here.

I say once again, “How time flies when you’re enjoying yourself”. I cant believe it has been 3 months that we have been here and it is only a bit over a week until we move on, so if you are reading this Tony/Brenda we will be up your way on Saturday 31^st.

Amazing! I had great plans of putting down heaps of words as I thought I had heaps to say, but after the above statement it seems I have run out of things to say. Not a great deal different has been happening, so there is just nothing new to report, so I guess that will just have to do for now.