Clairview

We took the Bruce Highway, which passes through Rockhampton and stopped further north at Clairview, one of the few places where the highway meets the coast. Clairview is described as a “pleasant fishing and crabbing town with unspoiled beaches” - it is an accurate description, and apart from the caravan park and holiday houses there is not much else here, but the caravan park is fairly crowded and is popular with Queenslanders.

As we were running low on alcohol and other supplies we drove 20km or so to the nearest town with a pub and shop. We bought the pub’s only cask of red wine and the choice in the shop (which doubled up as the post office) was pretty meagre, but enough to keep us happy. The sugar cane harvest is in progress and the roads are busy with trucks transporting the cut cane, there are miles and miles of cane plantations so it must still be a profitable crop.

We stopped en route at the Exotic Fruit Garden and Ice Creamery at Flaggy Rock, a tropical fruit orchard run by a Danish man who makes his own ice cream from the tropical fruit he grows, think mango, coconut, ginger, and lychee. Unfortunately some of the more exotic fruits are not in season.

Nobby, a Viet Nam vet who has a camper trailer across the way, has given us some of his catch of whiting for tea and Laurie is getting the rods ready hoping for a further catch. I don’t know whether or the not the statement that a saltwater croc has been seen in the creek nearby is true or not but I won’t be going!