We were back on the road today, after 3 enjoyable nights in Yeppoon.

Before we left Andy was up early running, his 28th day 10km in a row.

Our journey started in the pouring rain, so spending the next 3hrs in the car driving north to the small town of Clairview on the coast, seemed like a good outcome.

Along the way we got into listening to a few Louis Theroux podcasts, first with Tracy Ullman and the second with Ben Elton. Both were excellent conversations, with Louis having a natural talent in getting people to open up and to talk about their lives.

Around midday we arrived at Clairview, which sits only a mile from Bruce Highway and offered a wonderful Rocky Beach with views across an unspoilt sandy outcrop and the Broad Sounds Islands a few miles off the coast.

We stopped for some brunch on the beach and watched the clouds descend accepting that our chances of seeing any sun was looking highly unlikely.

With little else in Clairview apart from a few houses next to the beach, we returned to the highway and drove on up to Sarina arriving around 2pm. We had considered stopping at Cape Palmerston National Park about 20 miles south, however the rain had returned and we didn’t fancy getting soaking wet walking around the bushland.

Arriving in Sarina, we made our way to the Sugar Shed, an award winning food tourism attraction offering the full paddock to place to bottle sugar experience. Sadly this interpretative journey, using replica miniature mill equipment demonstrating how sugar cane is planted, grown and crushed finished just as we arrived – typical!

Instead of doing the distillery tour, we decided to go and explore the other big attraction in the town, the various beaches of Sarina.

The local Sarina guide provided us with a low down of the coast places to visit, and we made plans to visit first Sarina beach and then on to Grasstree beach.

Whilst in the centre, we went to find the other ‘attractions’ which included Buffy the Cane Toad statue.

Crafted out of paper mache in 1983 it become a float for a sugar festival. It was later cast in fibreglass to become a fixture in the town, in recognition of Sarina’s cane farming history.

We then drove 5 miles to the coast, visiting the large sandy open Sarina Beach. We went for a walk to chat over our plans for our return to Oxford in late March.

With just 7 weeks left of our adventure, we are starting to think more about our return, but are still keen to make the most of our remaining time and see as much of the East Coast.

Our walk along this vast deserted beach was very invigorating and whilst the sun was nowhere to be seen, the heat was still ever present.

The beach whilst sandy, was broken up in part by an outcrop of rocks that protruded from the sands.

Getting back into our car, we drove on to Campwin Beach lookout, but another rain cloud restricted our plans to visit the beach. Instead we enjoyed the views across the bay from inside the car, before catching up with some reading and planning our next stop in Mackay.

Late afternoon we checked into Golden Lace B&B for the night, a real bargain at just 90 dollars including an outdoor pool and a lovely decorated bedroom and roll top bath in the en suite.

We returned to the town centre for dinner, visiting a memorial to the Aussie soldiers who lost their lives in wars in Vietnam and Borneo. It was poignant for us having visited both countries over the last 12 months.

Our last stop before returning for the evening was a brief visit to the local butchers on the Main Street, where murals of Sarina’s dairy cows were emblazoned on the front and side of the building.

Tomorrow we drive on to Mackay, and have plans to visit Cape Hillsborough National Park, in particular Finch Hatton Gorge, a vast landscape of waterfalls, lush flora and volcanic boulder formations.