No way at getting away from my birthday even on the road. The Facebook feed went nuts with birthday greetings from friends so I was not going to forget it. Also I had a bout of gout so a painful reminder of getting older. Jenny surprised me with a prawn wrap for birthday lunch.

We farewelled Liz and Bruce and we were once again on the road again. Todays travels took us from Bundaberg to Rockhampton, well just north to Capricorn Caves. Another good day for travelling with blue skies and 27C.

Arriving around 4pm at Capricorn Caves, we were soon descended upon by mosquito’s which certainly put a damper on spending some time outside in the bushland setting. Apparently they only arrived a couple of days ago after some soaking rains.

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Bundaberg is synonymous with Bundaberg Rum so what do you do when visiting Bundaberg, visit the Bundaberg Distillery, even if it is Sunday morning.

I had tried to book online for the tours last night with no success but found out today that it closes off 24 hours before the tour time. This was not an issue as there was not that many around on a Sunday morning so they were happy to take our money.

The tour starts by going through the museum showing the origins of the distillery and the process involved in making the iconic rum.

Following a bit of knowledge it is time to head into the distillery and the sights and mainly the smells of the distilling process.

They are fairly serious with regard to ignition sources. You are not allowed to take in cameras, phones, watches and even car keys. I guess after a couple of large fires in their history, it is understandable.

First stop on the tour is the molasses well which has some amazing amount of product stored. They have 3 large wells and need to store enough molasses for 12 months production even though they only get molasses from the sugar mill for 6 months of the year. The smell is overpowering and I can still smell it in my clothes now 12 hours later.

The tour then takes you through the various plants that distil the rum. There is not a lot to see here apart from vats, then it is into one of the Bond Stores where the barrels and wood vats store the rum while it matures.

The tour ends in the bar and shop where of course there is the opportunity to taste the finished product. Bundy Rum is just not rum anymore with a large amount of blended products now. I just had to try the most expensive bottle (sells for $180 a bottle) and it didn’t really rock my socks. Remember I am a bourbon and beer drinker. I was more partial to some of the blended rums but I will probably stick to bourbon.

After leaving the bar with a Bundy Buzz, it was time to head to the local park and meet up with the Bundaberg Geocachers for an event. Even though it wasn’t a huge event it was a fun way to fill in the afternoon and meet other cachers. We even all headed out to do an underground geocache.

Tonight we headed out again for a meal with Liz, Bruce, Graham and Cheryl, this time to a local Indian restaurant. The meal was really good even though we were the only ones dining in. They did do a lot of take away while we were eating.

We bid farewell to Graham and Cheryl and headed around town with Liz and Bruce to grab some caches before heading back to camp.

Tomorrow we continue north to Rockhampton.

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At some ridiculously early time (it was probably around 7am) there was some little banging on the door. It seemed that Chloe and Amelia had woken the house so Ken thought it would be good to get the girls to wake up us as well.

First order of the day was to fix the bed. A trip up to Stratco and some steel hinges were purchased to replace the flimsy aluminium ones. A bit of drilling, pop riveting and screwing and we soon had a bed better than the bought one. It should last a bit longer than 2 years now.

We bid our farewells to all and we were soon on the road north, passing the Ettamogah Pub, missing the turn-off to the Big Pineapple (there were no signs) and finally stopping at the Ginger Factory and Nutworks in Yandina. Some sampling and purchases and we were on the road again.

It was good going while the Bruce Highway was still a dual carriageway but that soon ended and we were at the mercy of slow drivers. The was a bit of cat and mouse for a while with the carnival trucks coming out of Maryborough and heading into Bundaberg, each time I stopped for a geocache.

We arrived at the caravan park in daylight around 4pm and moved onto our riverside site next to cachers, Liz and Bruce. It wasn’t long and it was happy hour with Liz and Bruce arriving back at camp then Graham and Cheryl (some newby cachers but enthusiastic from the Sunshine Coast).

After getting the initiation of bitten by midgies (I am sure they know we are southerners), it was off to the Bundy RSL for dinner meeting up with some more cachers, John and Christine. With the 8 of us there, it was almost a mini event.

Tomorrow is a big day with the Bundaberg Distillery visit. Is 11am too early to be sampling Bundy Rum.

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Another perfect start to the day with blue skies and temperatures warming. Kally and her two kids joined us for breakfast and we all chatted for the morning. A nice laid back welcome to Bribie Island.

Where to for lunch? Why the Sandstone Point Hotel of course with its overlook of the back channel between Bribie Island and the mainland. It is a very impressive complex with still a lot more work to be done over the next few years. The meals and atmosphere was great and soon a couple of hours had been gobbled up.

We enjoyed some seafood and sandwiches with appropriate beverages, before going on a tour of the Island checking out the canal suburbs and the beach on the eastern side at Woorim. There was even a car carrier heading through the channel towards the Port of Brisbane.

It was approaching afternoon smoko time so off to Scoopys for Icecream and coffee. You could definitely get used to this island life.

Julie and Jenny headed down to Brisbane to catch up with Jenna and to grab the grandkids for the night. The kids are apparently early risers so it looks like Jenny will be staying in the house tonight. Aunty Jenny will be in charge of the kids in the morning.

Thought I had better catch up with Liz and Bruce since we are staying with them at Maryborough tomorrow night. Lucky I did. They are up at Bundaberg for a Geocaching Event so I guess we will be heading through to Bundaberg now.

We were about to go to bed when one of the corners moved forward. That was strange. I check to see if there was an issue with the slide out motors but they were working OK. Then the whole bed launched forward. That was very strange. A quick check and the first movement was a bed hinge breaking and the second movement was the other 3 hinges opening up and letting go. The two lifting rams then pushed the bed forward.

On checking the hinges, they were only aluminium with little strength. After doing a quick fix it was off to bed. I will look at replacing the hinges in the morning.

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Well Queensland lived up to its slogan, “The Sunshine State“, today with sunshine all day and temperatures around 27C. In fact, this afternoon the shorts came out and should stay out for the next month.

The moment of truth with the repaired camera cable this morning and the verdict was positive. It is amazing how much you miss the caravan camera when you haven’t got it. It makes it a lot easy to tow in conjunction with the mirrors.

Another travel day but not that far with 140 kilometres from Stanthorpe to Toowoomba, geocaching along the way.

I did make a stop to “Robins Nest”, a caching team but unfortunately they were not home. Found out later in the day the local Cancer Morning Tea was on. If I had known earlier, I would have made an appearance but not sure that I could mimic some of the costumes.

Tomorrow it is into Brisbane and pick up Jenny for the next phase of the trip up the East Coast to the Great Barrier Reef.

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A bit if a travel day today with some geocaching along the way. Travels took me through a lot of little towns in New South Wales including Stonehenge (with its attempts of stacked rocks), Glen Innes (with its natural Balancing Rock), Deepwater (with its scarecrow festival), Bolivia (with its hill that tests out your gearbox and brakes – just make sure you don’t have a truck following behind) and Tenterfield (with its infamous massacre in the 1840’s at Bluff Rock).

The border between New South Wales and Queensland has split towns with Jennings on the NSW side and Wallangarra on the QLD side. The border itself goes on a diagonal line through the town with the railway station on the Queensland side and the platform on the New South Wales side.

Just south of Stanthorpe is Ballandean where the dinosaur “Fruitisforus” used to roam apparently. To me it looks more like a Triceratops and I am not sure that it even lived around here.

Tonight’s digs are in Stanthorpe and finally managed to find someone that could fix my camera cable for the caravan. I stopped into the local music store (Top Beat Entertainment) that moonlighted as a Jaycar stockist and they found a couple of broken wires in the cable. The morning will confirm if they were able to fix the problem.

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I have been travelling for a couple of days now with out the camera on the caravan. For some reason there is no feed getting through to the screen. I have checked all the connections with no luck.

So before I start pulling wires, replacing the one section between the car and van would be the logical choice to try and eliminate the problem. Or so you would think.

After hunting around Tamworth yesterday with no luck, I spent the morning checking the last few stores that may have the lead. It seems that a caravan camera lead is not an easy thing to find.

I even stopped into Steptoe Caravans on the way out of town but they only had a couple of Polaris leads that use a different plug. Autobarn had a whole new wiring kit at $179 but I am not ready to spend that much money given that the original install including the camera and screen was $150.

Only had 106 kilometres to travel today but managed to make that last all day with a diversion to the Apsley Falls on the Oxley Highway. As you travel towards the area, it is rolling hills and farmland, not a landscape you would expect gorges and waterfalls. I was starting to wonder if I had taken a wrong turn.

Soon enough there was a sign to the left and a bitumen track into a National Park that lead down to a carpark. A couple of hundred metre walk and wow, there it was. A deep, steep gorge had been gouged out of the land over millions of years.

On the car park side, you walked down flights of stairs to lookouts that hung out over the gorge and took your breathe away.

Back up the top, you then took a suspension bridge to get to the other side of the gorge to get an even more breathtaking view from above the sheer cliffs down to the Apsley River below.

If you are ever in the area of Walcha, make sure you take the drive to Apsley Falls, you will not be disappointed.

On the way to Armidale from Walcha is the town of Uralla. I needed to stop in this town and was going to find the local scout hall with no success, as growing up, 1st Uralla was my cub pack and scout troop but back in South Australia. It no longer exists over in SA and maybe they don’t have one here either.

What I did find was “Thunderbolt” the bush ranger, well his statue. He used to rob mail coaches and homes back in the 1870’s in the area before the law caught up with him and shot him.

Pulled into Armidale on dusk and will have a look around town in the morning before heading into Queensland. One observation as I travelled through town is that there is just about a school of some sort on every second corner. A lot of education going on here.

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