Saved by a ranga

So there we were in Gladstone at Hayman's Electrical, in pursuit of a fix for Clover's TV aerial cable, which had divided itself into two bits, during the last caravan pack-up. Hmmn, said the chap behind the counter. That'd be a 59 gauge and its been crimped already, see?  We nodded sagely. What you need is a new cable termination connector, but then it would have to be crimped and we don't have the equipment.  Pause. I had no idea what he was talking about. Then a voice beside us says, I've got a crimpin' tool out in me truck. This voice came from a skinny red-headed bloke nearby, stubbies, workboots, a weathered face. Get the tool, and the stripper outta the back box, he said, glancing in the direction of a skinny youth also in work clothes, who was evidently the apprentice. About 15 seconds later and he had done the repair, after sending the chap behind the counter back into the storeroom for the correct fitting. Saved by a ranga. No one wanted any money. We left the premises thanking our lucky stars.  We love rangas.

Yesterday, David caught a beautiful fish, a Dart, off the beach at 1770.  Here it is in the bucket.

Shortly after its portrait was taken, David gave it the kiss of life and it swam away into the surf.  We had frittata for dinner and it was very good.  No miracles of nature were harmed in the making of our dinner.  Except for the potatoes, which screamed as they were fried.

This morning we were woken at 6.30am by movement from the various campers and caravans crammed in around us at the caravan park at 1770.  Particularly upsetting was the emphysemic coughing coming from the Windsor Majestic (circa 1963) next door. By about 8.30am everyone else had hitched up and left.  We felt it incumbent upon us to have a proper breakfast and to carry out all the correct packing up rituals, so we didn't get away until about 10am. We resolved to head for somewhere uninhabited. We headed north and crossed the Tropic of Capricorn by about lunchtime.

Gladstone is, in the words of its promotional material, The Engine Room of Industry. It has various heavy lifters such as Rio Tinto Alcan, QAL, Boyne Smelters and makes such things as alumina, aluminium, ammonium nitrate, sodium cyanide and even refined gold.

It also has Queensland's largest coal-fired power station, generating 1,680 megawatts, using some four million tonnes of central Queensland coal annually. The railway bringing all that coal in shadows the highway as you drive out of Gladstone, and there are more or less continuous freight trains, towing huge numbers of wagons, we counted 65 on one of them, all bearing the QR logo.

We were rather pleased to get away from all that industry and hard work, and tonight we are camped in a quiet spot in the middle of Byfield National Park, at the end of a bit of dirt road, about 35 Km north of Yeppoon. No other caravan in sight. The only sound as I write this is the flap flap of the wings of some night flier, perhaps an owl. Peace.