Blog 15; the trouble with following the sat nav…..

I wasn’t planning on blogging tonight as I did not think I would have anything to say – but that was until we got lost in the bush and went in the wrong direction for over an hour!

We left our hotel by 8 am this morning as we had a 5 hour drive to the next resting place of Rockhampton. We have used Apple maps since we got here, mainly because the instructions are clearer, and it has not let us down yet.

Today we chose the ‘fastest route’, and although it was the fastest, it did not keep us on the main roads – well I say that, over here, a single lane road is still a ‘highway’ and some of the motorways only have one lane too. We passed through a place called Woolooga and Em stopped the car so she could go to the loo in a local café. Even though we were just passing through, the folks at the café (what3words; snubbed.publications.tripled) were lovely and said she could use the facilities, they directed her along a corridor that was all dark, where she met another lady who asked if she was lost and put the lights on – Em was surrounded by stuffed animals and mounted animal heads on the wall – it was a very quick comfort break… she managed to snap a pic of the main area, but did not linger in the corridor of dead things

We weren’t too concerned with the road we were on, and were trapping along at the posted speed limit, when we came to a road sign that said ‘drive to the road conditions’ and the road ended.

Just like that.

We were on a gravel track! Eeek!

Em was driving, and slowed right down, but even going slow felt too fast! The locals had no problem with the road conditions though, and a couple of times we almost were forced off the road so they could overtake. It honestly felt like we were rally driving – we could have paid a lot of money for that experience 😊

We had gone a few miles when we passed a car parked up with the driver looking at his tyres – we slowed down and asked if he needed help and he just laughed and said no – fair enough, on we went – at this point I thought I would check if there was an alternative route so ended the route we were on and recalculated…. Only to find we were out of signal – and we did not get it back for over 90 minutes - at which time we discovered we had been going the wrong way for over an hour ☹. A 5-hour trip was now a 7 hour trip.

Not only were we on a gravel track, we then passed a sign that said the road was going to have twists and turns – what more hazards could they throw at us?

We discovered a new road sign, it said ‘Unfenced road – wandering animals’ I mean they weren’t doing too much wandering as it was too hot, but they were doing a lot of sitting right by the road.

We arrived at Rockhampton and it is singularly the most unfriendly place we have been to. No-one smiles, and no-one wants to engage in conversation.

We are staying at a campsite tonight, although we are in a hut rather than a tent (what3words; nowadays.bridges.cover) and I am not sure how much sleep we are going to get as the seeds from the tree next to us keep dropping on the roof and it makes such a clatter - plus Emily found out first spider.....

Rockhapton is apparently the Beef capital of Oz, and there are huge cow/bull statues as you enter the town. An intact bull too as my farmer friends would say.

We did figure out why Em is having so much trouble ordering a beer! The bar tender could not understand what she wanted, and it turns out that Ozzies have not called Lager Lager for about 20 years – they just call it ‘golden’.

We tried to find somewhere for dinner, but the options were very limited, so we ended up trying our fist Dominio’s pizza which was highly recommended to Emily. Domino’s pizza basic pizza is just $5, we had a large $7.99 which is £4! Last of the big spenders!

Tomorrow we are relocating to our next adventure and we are staying in a cave for two nights. Yup, a cave. Not sure if we will have internet, so dont worry if you dont hear from us for a couple of days :)