Where Buoy Meets Gull - Whitsunday Adventure Day 2

Wednesday's adventures: So the next day we were on the road...Chris and I have been all up and down the Eastern Coast of Australia. We've been from WAY down south below Sydney all the way up to Rockhampton -several times! We've driven from Townsville to Airlie Beach and back. We've spent a day in Mackay (when we arrived by boat) on the bus. But the road from Rockhampton to Airlie Beach was virgin territory for us!

I am always amused by the roadside signs that encourage the drivers to take breaks and stay awake. These days there are some quite grisly ones - I'm not sure they ENCOURAGE you to take a break, more like they try to scare you into it. My favorite plain variety is the one that says, "Don't sleep and drive." That always cracks me up. Maybe it should say "Don't drive when sleepy." Actually, there IS one that says that. There is a new series of billboards that says "Trivia can keep you alert! Play trivia while you drive." Then they actually offer you trivia questions, such as - "What is Queensland's Floral Emblem?" and "What is the highest mountain in Queensland?" Then, quite a ways down the road, they provide the answers. (Cooktown orchid, which I knew and Mount Bartle Frere, which I've never heard of!)

Then there's another sign that says, "Keep playing trivia - it could save your life!" There are other GREAT BIG signs which says things like, "Still a long way to go, kids!" And I have NO idea what they're for!

Amongst the usual kangaroos and wallabies dead beside the road, I also saw a VERY large pig with it's legs up in the air in the classical cartoon pose, but sadly, further down the road, I saw a very small piggy. So are there wild boars running around North Queensland like in Hawaii, or were these domestic piggies? I also saw a bilby dead beside the road. But the most interesting "on the road" thing was this snake we saw crossing the road. It must have been about five feet long, and it was fawn colored, but the arresting thing was that it's head was up about a foot above the roadway and it was hooded! It was like it saw us coming and didn't like us and decided it was going to bite our car! It was so quick that, though at first I thought it was a snake, after we went past, I thought it might be a dead palm frond! But Chris assured me that he had looked in the rear-view mirror and saw it finish crossing the road and it was most assuredly a snake! We really have no idea what kind it was - and don't really know of any hooded Australian varieties.

Any help out there? Then again, maybe it WASn't an Australian variety, because about 100 meters after that, we passed a Reptile Park. Perhaps it escaped!

We came across a sign that said, "Leap - 500 meters". OK - so what's a leap? We figured it was some kind of escarpment that folks jump off - maybe into the water? But then, when we went the 500 meters, the sign said "Leap hire here". Now I'm REALLY confused! How can you HIRE a leap? What in the heck is going on here?

I have some other roadside questions, as well - Why do they have a sign for Sally Creek Overflow about 10 meters before they have the sign for Sally Creek? Who cares?

Who is Gentle Annie and why did she have a road named after her?

The countryside up there was VERY lush and lovely - it reminded me a lot of Hawaii (where I grew up) with the palm trees, the sugar cane, the greenness, and especially in the shape of its mountains.

OK - I think I've actually already WRITTEN the next two days adventures, so you won't have to wait too long, and we'll actually get into the sailing bit, so that's a good thing! Stay tuned.

BTW - I found a photo of the four of us when I downloaded the pics off my camera, so I thought I'd add that here: