The annoying serenade of Kent’s cell phone alarm alerts us, it is 5AM. It is still dark of course but we haul ourselves out of bed. Locals report that there will be Kangaroos on the beach at 5:30 and we a just a short walk across camp. Red headlamped we emerge onto the sand and spot 14 hoppers picking through vegetation left on shore as the tide retreated. A ranger fills in on the details. We are looking at 12 wallabies (they have a light stripe on their hip) and 2 young eastern grey kangaroos. This one of just 4 places on the continent where kangaroos routinely come to the beach to feed. They are looking for sprouted mangrove seed pods that have some mineral that is otherwise missing from this areas diet of grasses. They are pretty tolerant of people so we get to watch for nearly an hour. One wallaby baby (he’s a Joey too) is just peeking out of mom’s pouch checking out all that is around him as Mom nearly drags his little nose along the beach. It all unfolds against a lovely sunrise over the ocean. A nice way to start the day.
That is our fun for the day. Since our stay has been shortened, we need to cover some ground. To make it even more fun, this stretch of road between Mackay and Rockhampton is universally described as the worst, most uninteresting, boring drive of the entire coast. We stay optimistic but it is pretty tedious. Cane fields give way to rolling pastureland as far as one can see, to sparse eucalyptus forest, to scrub land then back to pasture land. Queensland transportation even acknowledges the challenge of the drive with burmashave type signs and a trivia question or two. It is a long drive but we safely arrive at Star Roadhouse and Caravan Park in Gladstone. They serve up some interesting pizza .Nearly every one listed includes pineapple and capsicum but none include red or tomato sauce. We go for their Police Piggy special and it is a fun experiment. We eat it all so isn’t too bad. We are in for the night.