We left home at 4am on Saturday morning on our drive up to Queensland. Leaving early we missed a lot of the traffic, but still had plenty of vehicles on the road and a few stops due to roadworks …. 🚧 the never ending roadworks that seem to be on that Sydney to QLD route!
There was plenty of smoke and burnt out bush the whole way up the coast, these fires are so far reaching.
Even whilst we were headed off on holidays, others were battling the fires back at home. These photos below were taken by Shelly’s sister after she was evacuated from her home on Saturday. Taken on Grose Vale Rd looking back towards Kurrajong Heights & Bowen Mountain. Other family members were evacuated due to fires further down south. It’s such a scary time for all. As long as everyone remains safe, that’s the best we can ask for.
So here’s the stats for our first day
Our first day was a total of 936km and approx 10 hours driving (including stops) and the Prado averaged 13.6 litres/100km towing the camper. We arrived at our hotel for the night (AKA Danny & Cat’s house 😆) in the early arvo and settled in for a chat and a few beers. Danny, Cat and the kids will join us, along with a few others, on the island after Christmas.
Sunday morning we left at 6.30am to make the final relatively short drive to Inskip Point where we jumped on the barge to head over to the island and find a place to camp and set up home for the next couple of weeks.
The drive was fairly good with no traffic. Inskip was very firm (as many may know, this beach is known for bogging vehicles!) and once on the island, the beach run up to camp was easy and smooth, much easier than our last visit. We found a great campsite big enough to fit all of our group.
The bushfire is still burning down the southern end of the island, but thankfully you cannot really smell it from camp. We’ve had a juvenile dingo visit us at camp a few times already and saw one whilst driving on the beach so they are definitely around! Thankfully not too many people around though, we will make the most of this while we can as we expect the crowds to arrive from Boxing Day onwards.