We took the Sarina-Marlborough Road from the Hotel and got about 5km before I remember that I hadn't latched the bike rack back into position and put the pin in to secure it. I quickly pulled up and checked and, sure enough, the bikes and rack were still angled back against the spare on the trailer and unlocked, no pin to be seen, not that I expected to find it as I had left it on the rear bumper.
Back we went to the hotel and retraced our steps. The hotel grounds had just been mowed so there was little chance of finding it there. We had pulled over a few hundred metres up the road to ring Mum and Dad so we checked there as well and found it on the road. Luck seemed to be on our side, I don't know how it managed to stay on the bumper for so long, we had crossed rail lines and pot holes before parking at this spot. The pin now has a chain on it so that if it happens again (which it shouldn't), it's not going anywhere.
Well I didn't know what to expect when we decided to stop at Lake Elphinstone for a few days to catch up on things, but I was very pleasantly surprised to find a very nice little oasis in the middle of nowhere.
Erin met a couple of families with girls her age and they took her out on their ski boat and she got to try tubing for the first time. Sunday got very busy with the locals coming for a day out water skiing but by 5pm we were back to just us and a few grey nomads camped at either end of the park.
Lake Elphinstone is another free campground with drinking water, toilets and showers, unfortunately we didn't find the donkey to heat the water until the last day otherwise we could've enjoyed hot showers. People that we met told us that 3 yrs ago the lake was so dry you could walk across it, now it's full and the water line is above the tree line so there are paperbark trees 20m from the shore. We were up at dawn every morning watching the sun rise over the water and learning how to operate the manual functions of our camera to take the best photos. At night, we were doing the same with the full moon rising. Highly recommend this camp to anyone going through.
Today we passed through Mackay to pick up some more parts to try and fix our wiring issue - now when we use our left indicator we blow the fuse for that too. That's on my to-do list for Townsville.
We had planned to go to Eungella Dam for a couple of nights but decided to try St Helen's Beach Camping Reserve (near Calen) instead to give Erin some ocean for a change of scenery. The sign at the park says $17 per night, fees collected daily but apparently no one has collected fees in month, so another budget stay – and more cold showers.
