MAAD Road Trip 2022. We go North

  Day 15 - Sun Sept 11th - Rockhampton zoo to Carmilla Sands  We wandered the ‘esplanade-esque’ quarter, where the fancy, big buildings clumped along a few blocks of manicured paths, well behaved trees and landscaped terraced areas tumbling down to the wide brown river.  We tried for a table at the boathouse, but, due to staff shortages, they were unable to offer dine-in.  Walking the block to see what else was available, a more familiar regional town feel appeared, more relaxed, though closed-down businesses and empty shop fronts featured strongly. We found one cafe that looked promising, but it was also a tattoo parlour (the barista on duty was also a tattooist, and was inking at the time). The boathouse was revisited for takeaway coffee and croissant, and once again, our flexible grass table hosted the feast.  https://boathouserockhampton.co Rockhampton is the beef capital of Australia… so we thought we would visit a butcher. Turns out it’s more so the beef e...

  Day 14 - Sat Sept 10th - Bundaberg to Rockhampton  Bundaberg, city of sugar. We woke to the news of her majesty Queen Elizabeth the II passing away, and kept an eye out for flags at half mast for the next few weeks. We bid farewell to #10 in Our outlying trailer park and headed in for a quick town viewing. The golden age of this town was somewhere in the Art Deco period, and the few blocks of the central area certainly show this.  Several elaborate bridges and some impressive early 20th century public buildings later, we decided to swing past the main sugar mill and factory for Bundaberg rum. It chugged and steamed proudly, while the surrounding building and suburb bore the signs of long exposure to the treacly air. Everything looked just a touch brown and potentially sticky.  As we pulled up interest was piqued by the ever present cane trains manoeuvring, so Sasha and papa did a quick wander to see what could be seen while Nastya fed. The sugar refinery was a hive...

  Day 13 - 9th sept - North from Noosa to Bundaberg Packing in the rain was a possibility, but thankfully there was enough of a pause to do the majority without getting wet.  We were able to make it to a cafe just in time to experience a decent downpour of rain and get in an early lunch.  https://littlecovecoffee.com.a u We farewelled Babulya, Dedulya and Noosa. An ice cream shop from last trip - Mammino - became our next aim. It had moved to a golf course, which would be considered odd in most parts of Australia, but we were north of Noosa. The warmth, distance and moisture starts affecting everything from business location (things end up in weird places) to traffic (and psychotic driving), access to internet (full 4G with nothing working to one bar of 3G where everything still loads), to the serving temp of your coffee (atomic hot apparently).  We got to the golf club ice creamery as they were closing, and sprawled on the springy cooch after our server closed up to...