Road Trip : Alligator Creek to Credition Hall

If the previous day was bit of boring driving-wise the next day was gettin even worse.. Leaving Townsville I was leaving tropics as well and at times Bruce Hwy was gettin so bloody monotous. I stopped in Ayr to fill up my gas bottle and doin some small maintenance for the car. After a late brekkie I was headin down south again. I came up against this small mountain right besides highway and since there was a sign for scenic drive & lookout.. Bloody hell, if it was a steep climb up to Wallaman Falls, this one topped it easily, I even had to go to 1st gear right at the end.. ..and what a views there was from Mt Inkerman, awesome..

My next planned stop was in Bowen. One of my work colleaques had praised the town but got to be honest, I felt it being fairly boring and even a bit depressing. I'd say the main thing Bowen is known for, is the production of Baz Luhrmann's Australia back in 2007. I'd say that was the first time I've been on previous movie settings, at least as far as I know. I was supposed to take few photos of the Big Mango as well but there was a road work right besides it so couldn't drive into yard. On my way down I was goin thru in my head whether or not drive to Airlie Beach. I never planned to visit Whitsundays anyway but might as well take a drive a glance at the town.. I stopped in Proserpine for few hrs just to have a wee rest and weigh my options also checkin camping prices in Airlie. Finally, I decided to move on and headed to Flametree Caravan Park just 5km past town, it was cheapest and I also had a tag in my car keys that would give me 10% discount, sweet. Nice thing about this place was the amount of birds all over. One of them scared me a bit since didn't see it straight away when jumpin off from car and it started makin this odd whining noise. Apparently it was a couple hanging around campers, possibly havin a nest somewhere close-by. There was heaps of other birds as well but they we're just too fast for to take photos.

On the next mornin I checked Shute Harbour and Airlie Beach, took some photos and re-fuelled, then it was time head down south again. Road towards Mackay was gettin fairly boring, I was just thinkin what it's gonna be between Mackay & Rockhampton, apparently that's one of the most boring parts of this highway. I drove around few blocks in Mackay trying to find something worth of photographing but didn't come up against anything, maybe I was just too geared up heading towards Eungella National Park for camping. I stopped briefly at Coles to do some re-stocking and headed inland towards Eungella. Gradually I was closing up the range and yet again, I found myself climbing up steep, steep mountain. What a views! I was waitin till I come back down how awesome it's gonna be. I drove thru Eungella township and din't even stop on lookout points since it was gettin a bit late and I wanted to get to my camping spot soon. For my disappointment overnight camping in carpark wasn't allowed and I should camp in my tent few hundred metres away, yeah right.. I took a stroll to nearby platform to have a chance to see platypuses and I was there at the right time with bunch of other people. I reckon there was two or three platypuses in the river and what an interesting creature it is, quite a bit smaller that I actually had thought of. I managed to get few decent photos and headed back to my car to find some other camping spot anywhere close-by.

I found a nice camping spot about 8km away from Broken River next to Credition Loop Road. This was gonna be my base for next two nites, I had been wanting to find some secluded spot where to spend few days without doing anything, just relaxing in the nature. When I drove to my spot there was two other cars with nobody around. I started cookin my roo burgers and after awhile these two older couples, kiwi & dutch, showed up. We had a nice time next to a wee fire just chattin about everythin and havin few drinks. When I woke up next mornin the dutch couple had already left but I had wee chat with the kiwi's before they left. Now this place would be all mine, for how long, remained to be seen. I had to wait only until noon when this danish couple arrived for camping. We had a nice afternoon chattin and around 5ish we went to close-by stream tryin to find platypuses. And what an excitement that was - we had to wait for awhile but then we saw two of them, another one comin closer to us and it actually stopped right in front of us and gazed for a second until it got scared by the camera click.. We we're followin them for about 45mins, unfortunately I couldn't get decent photos since it was gettin a bit dark put nevertheless, it was all about the experience. I was supposed to do a camp-fire but it started raining heavily within 30mins when we got back to camping area so had to settle down sittin in my camper for the rest of the night.

All in all, seeing those platypuses was clearly a highlight of my trip so far and the decision of stayin put for 2nites was such a good move. I felt so relaxed the next mornin when I left Credition Hall.