Driving coastal Queensland

Below is me trying to play catch up while traveling as I was not the road so frequently. Now, here I am almost six months being back home in Canada and I have been missing this creative outlet so much. But I have only recently found the time, energy, and my groove back to be back on here! I hope you excited too! Ill be trying to catch up on the rest of my travels that I have been doing since last December. Is there anything you would like to see. How I travel? what I back? I am open to anything and everything. But under I get some more posts all done up, here is one I found in my drafts!

I’m am so far behind in writing about my travels. I’m currently already in Western Australia and have a road trip here. I’m doing the majority of the driving so I really haven’t been in my phone much. And when I have time at a petrol station I don’t have service. So I’ll be playing a bit of catch up. I hope that’s okay

I wasn’t originally supposed to do a Queensland road trip but if you read my post on instagram about the Northern Territory you would have know that I flew back to spend my two weeks so I was able to get into Western Australia without have to quarantine. They have crazy state borders and it’s hard to keep up. So because I had those two weeks, and I wasn’t ready to go back to work. I thought to myself I still haven’t seen the Queensland outback and much of costal Queensland. And I own a car, so it just seemed right to drive up the coast for a bit and cut back down through the outback. At this time Brisbane was getting washed out with rain, the La Niña has been hitting the east coast hard with tons of rain and shocking thunder storms everyday.

With a very rough draft and a few places that I wanted to see off we went. Brought camping gear in case accommodations were book out. But hit the road and drove about 5.5 hours to the first place, Bundabrug.

Lizzie and I never booked any accommodations until that day, just going with the flow and we weren’t sure where we would drive that day. Or if we really liked a place we would have the option of staying longer. So we never actually stayed in Bundaberg, stayed on a little acreage in Childers. This place was adorable with lots of fruity trees nearby, nothing ripe enough to pick yet. It had rained our whole stay there here. But something about the rain is peaceful and was a good place to rest and refresh! While Bundaberg doesn’t have a ton to offer one of the big things to do is check out the rum distillery and the brewery. Yes, they have two!! They make rum and my favourite little fruit juices, and ginger beer! Both these were great, good worth for you $$ and you got a decent amount to taste. They had rules on tasting if you were the driver however.

From Bundy (yea towns have nicknames) we drive up to a town called Seventeen Seventy (1770). I heard about this town from a friend who had originally gone fishing up here. I can see why he loved fishing up here it was absolutely stunning. Had a beautiful coast that you could easily surf and a huge port for the blast, fishing charter, and tours for near by island. A lovely little postal walk where I found a dead shark ( most likely from poor fishing). The accommodations for the night was a beautiful shared beach house in a gated community. The owner was a yoga instructor and surf teacher ( clearly living the coastal dream). With this house we had our own infinity pool area which had access to outdoor sitting areas and BBQs. The gated community had its own private beach which is so nice. Since we were enjoying our time so much we extended our stay! ( If you ever decided to extend your stay on airbnbs just message the owner directly, as they often will give you a cheaper rate). Even though is evened up raining most of the next day we relaxed in the hammocks undercover. Had wine and a cheese board and watched the lizards and the wallaby’s in the back yard!

With all this rain much of the road behind us or back to Brisbane had flood spots. So turning back wasn’t an option. Having a end goal was a good plan with a few national parks we wanted to see along the way. Drive up to Rockhampton to fuel and get some food as the next leg of the trip was driving into the outback. I know this was all the way up the coast but I had already been past this point and have seen Cairns and Townsville. So inland we went.

Now, rural and outback are pretty much the same thing so we drove about five hours to our next destination, it had rained the whole time. We really wanted to see a national park in the Emerald area however with the rain and unsealed roads the park was closed and so was all access to the national park. Knowing that it was raining and the forecast telling us the next day was to be mostly sun, we decided to drive another 5.5 hours to Longreach. Longreach is right in the middle of Queensland, the heart of the outback.

This drive was no joke, probably top five storms I have ever driven in! It was actually scary. Wipers going full speed, driving about 15km/hr and still couldn’t see anything ahead of me. You can’t pull over as you would get stuck or bogged because they don‘t have a shoulder. The only choice was to keep going knowing that you could be driving into flooded water at any moment is the scary part. We somehow made it, and the storm had passed. The next day I learned the roads were all flooded and if we didn't decide to drive the extra distance to Longreach, we would have been flooded out. I also learned that a 34 year old had been swept away with the water on a flood way and unfortunately passed away. These floods are no joke. IF ITS FLOODED FORGET IT!!

Wise words to live by!

Let's end here, half way through the road trip. We made it to the centre of Queensland!!