Leaving Hervey Bay

February 24:

Today we leave Hervey Bay amid the rain and grey skies and make the decision to drive north to a quirky town called The Town of 1770, named for the year that the roving and enterprising captain James Cook first landed on mainland Australia.  He set foot on a town that was named Round Hill, except the townspeople decided upon the Bicentennial to rename it to commemorate that auspicious event and decided upon the remarkably creative name “The Town of 1770”. We start the morning off right with a hearty breakfast for all, clean up the apartment and head out. We drive for an endless amount of time, with intermittent rainstorms along the way finally stopping for lunch at the town of Bundaberg.  We park and look for a good place to eat and all decide that Indian sounds good, however, the restaurant is closed.  After a careful search, we locate an Italian restaurant that is within our budget and our family enjoys a lovely sit-down meal with waiters and all.  Blair has opted to forgo our lunch location in favor of Dominoes pizza he saw up the road.  After lunch, we amble through town and in and out of a “Sally” store and finally back to the car for a short drive to Dominoes and then open road for more driving. After several hours, we finally reach our destination….and as luck would have it, there are no rooms at the inn.  Turns out that “The Town of 1770” is hosting a Blues/Jazz Fest that starts the very night we have pulled into town.  Yeah!!!  We check with the local information kiosk who is unable to locate a sufficient accommodation for us….SO….we decide to drive further north to advance us toward our ultimate destination of Airlie Beach.  We check the town of Calliope, mostly because I like the reference to the Greek goddess, but that is not a good option either, we pass by any number of interesting looking names, but finally decide on Rockhampton as it is the largest city and we reckon most likely to have accommodation for 6 people.  We check a couple of places before settling on a dorm style room that has us all snuggly within a very small space…no sitting area…just beds and a bathroom.  C’est la vie.  We are starving at this point and go for the easiest possible meal of KFC…too bad they have the calorie count right beside the menu board….3575 for the 4 piece box.  Annie and I are able to resist and forgo the greasy meal.  We return to the hotel and off to bed shortly.