Wednesday, 31 July 2013
After two days with quite distinct and identifiable themes, you could possibly expect us to give it a break, but Day Three of this little odyssey was always going to be a day of contrasts.
We’d done the Introduction to Australia and a bit of fauna thing on Day One, and Day Two had been Small Town North Queensland, so what did we have in store for Day Three?
Well, for a start, with The Visitors having spent most of the trip from Townsville to Bowen nodding off in the back seat we were still up for a demonstration of the Great Australian Emptiness, with a road trip that would take us around an hour and a half during which time we’d be passing through a countryside that was almost totally unpopulated.
An hour and a half, in other words, of practically nothing.
Then, when we reached our lunchtime destination there was a fair chance of a significant Wow! Factor if the sky decided to cooperate, the sort of place that would have people flocking to enjoy it in Japan. Here, there’d be a scattered smattering of holidayers.
Then, after lunch, we’d be motoring in to Airlie Beach, with a visit to the supermarket to pick up on snack items before heading off to the accommodation that we’d be calling home for the next two nights. We’d be doing a seafood nibbles thing in company with Psychologist Girl and a bottle of wine or three so blotting paper was an important consideration.
We originally planned to buy the nibbles after we’d socked up on seafood at the wholesale operations beside the Duck Hole, but when we were slightly late out of the blocks and diverted to take a look at the live export fish tanks at Arabon I suggested we look at that side of things in Cannonvale where we’d have more time and, possibly, a greater range to select from.
That meant we set out for Montes with around half a kilo of banana prawns, a slightly smaller quantity of red spot kings and a couple of bugs tucked away in the esky along with bottles of Riesling, Semillon Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay and plans to fill out the spread from the supermarket.
Chances to emphasize the Great Australian Emptiness went largely by the wayside as The Visitors once again dozed in the back seat (or maybe they were just lying doggo, exploiting the fact that I couldn’t turn the head to offer largely incomprehensible explanations of what we were passing). In any case there wasn’t really that much to talk about, even after we turned off the highway onto Collingvale Road to take the short cut that shaves a good ten minutes off the trip to Montes.
The Visitors were, however, well and truly awake shortly after we turned off Dingo Beach Road and headed towards Hydeaway Bay. Between the turnoff and the bend that delivers you into the rather swisho seaside residential there are a number of acreage properties that suggest people with a bit of cash to throw around.
It’s only when you come back in sight of the ocean that you realize we’re not talking about a twenty-first century reincarnation of the traditional Queensland beach hut. There are some rather impressive pieces of architecture on the slope that looks over the bay, and when you loop through Blackcurrant Drive, which we did on the way back you can see why people are willing to shell out the big bucks to optimize the view.