Heading towards Noosa

We had a couple of big travel days, about 6 hours the first day and then 5. 

There were a lot of roadworks, or road work in Aussie terms, road work. On the second day our last hour was through torrential rain.

At one point we came across a sign that said "smoke hazard", and it was certainly so. For a few kms the ground was smoldering and in some cases still burning fiercely.

It was quite scary at times.

Our first stay was in a studio unit in a camping ground in Rockhampton. Not the standard of our recent accommodation but nowhere near the cost either.

The next night we stayed in Maryborough. Its claim to fame is that the author of Mary Poppins was born here.

In both towns we looked around the CBD and walked along the river. Maybe it was the rain, but the main streets seemed dead, many buildings were empty and there were very few places to sit out to eat or drink. It seems the recession is hitting small town Australia quite hard.