July 11th: Bowen to Proserpine – 63.2 km
Day 271
We had a bumpy day today.
The road surface was unprecedentedly coarse, and having 3 wheels we could feel the resistance. At 20 km Chopper’s tire was punctured by a quill from an echidna. We stopped, found a hole on the tube and patched it up. As soon as the tire was put together, it went soft again, there was still yet another puncture that we missed. So Chopper got to perform the procedure all over again. 50 minutes later, we were finally back on the road again, thanks to the echidna quill which fell so perfectly erect between the crevices of the rough road surface.
It was also a windy day, and unfortunately we had it blowing against us. It was almost like traveling in the desert again, where the endless strong headwind limited us to 10 kph. Approaching Proserpine, we started to see huge advertisement boards for Airlie Beach – mega resorts, jet skis, sky diving, EXTREME! ect. Many caravaners suggested that we visit Airlie Beach, but maybe they mistook us the young backpacker types who have endless energy and cash to seek out adventurous activities after driving all day in their van. We try to avoid touristy spots at all costs, so Airlie Beach was quickly crossed off as a destination.
We stopped at Gunna Go Caravan Park 10 km away from Proserpine, and found it to be a very quiet and lovely place to set up camp.
In the middle of the night, we had an unexpected visitor – a possum found our bread left out on Chopper’s seat, and treated himself to whatever was left in the bag. Blinded by Chopper’s headlamp and thrilled by the free calories, the possum shamelessly and fearlessly sat on Chopper’s seat and devoured the bread, while Chopper was trying his best to scare him away with little success. Only after Chopper was chased by the curious possum, he realized that the only way to get rid of the possum was tossing the bread far away from the tent, hoping the possum would find the booty and never come back.
