After 18 months of planning, Glen and I left for our Cape York Trip yesterday, Thursday 9 July 2009.  Glen and I aren’t the biggest fans of having our photos taken so a work friend (Hi Tricia) gave me the idea of taking  a mascot and letting them tell the story of your trip.  Don’t get me wrong, there will be pictures of us during the trip but already we are having heaps of fun setting up our mascot.

Our mascot is… Dog from Footrot Flats.

Now to the story so far.

Glen had taken Thursday off work to pack the final things into the car and he picked me up from work after I had sent the 170+ PAYG Summaries out!!  Glen had packed the car, was ready to go and I still had work to do, so Glen went to say “Bye” to his olds in Brisbane before he came to pick me up.

We left Upper Mount Gravatt at approx 1:30pm and we stopped at the BP northbound for lunch.  The first of many takeaway meals on the way up.  Seeing we were both starving and the fastest moving line was McDonalds, that’s what we had.  We had a pretty good run up to our first overnight stop, Bundaberg.  We stayed at my olds place.  Dinner: Glen – Pork Chop & Veges Me: Spaghetti Bog (yum yum my favourite) & Veges.  Dessert: Apple Pie & Custard.  After dinner we went to my sister’s for second desserts: Little Cakes, Chocolate Slice, Anzac Slice & Tea / Coffee.

10th July: Glen woke up just after 4am, and we were on the road by 5am.   This is the biggest kilometre day for the trip up to Cairns, our official start for the Cape Loop.  We stopped at McDonald’s for breakfast – top hint – 24 hr open Maccas will give you old crappy stuff if it’s sitting there.  We didn’t eat all our brekky – we felt crook.

We stopped at Rocky for the touristy photo ops (and a P Stop).

Something that we’ve noticed is the amount of caravans that are heading up north with us.  We had two different episodes of where people pulled out in front of us (in a 110 zone) and Glen had to JAM on the brakes to stop from ramming into them.  I understand that the highway is busy at the moment, but hell, wait and not cause an accident!!!

We stopped at Sarina for some lunch – Bakery food.  Sarina reminded me of Bundy.  Probably something to do with the Mill and the smell.

From Sarina, we stopped at Hays Point to check out the Coal Port.  Glen counted 32 ships waiting off the coast to come in to fill up with Coal.  The tugs bringing them in were awesome to watch.

Walking down from the car park at the Coal Port (Hays Point), I saw this sign and freaked out (wearing thongs!).

Our stop for tonight is Mackay.  I booked our accommodation on Wotif and when we plugged in the address, we kept driving and driving and we ended up at Slade Point.  It’s on the beach north of Mackay.  Driving through Mackay, Glen and I  really liked it.  The CBD is really beautiful, and there seems to be a lot works happening here, so we assume that Mackay is really growing and moving ahead.

Our room at SeeBreeze is pretty good.   I saw some dodgy places in Mackay that wanted $90 per night and we paid $100 for here and that includes Breakfast. The shower is awesome!

We went down and had dinner in the Bistro.   Glen got the seafood pasta and I had a vegetarian stirfry.  Big meals and pretty reasonable cost.

Our stop tomorrow night is Townsville.  Should be interesting seeing the V8 Supercars are in town this weekend too!