Sunday today so before starting our journey we got together over breakfast and listened to the next sermon on Hebrews- chapter 5 – how Christ is all sufficient and the one and only way of salvation – a great encouragement and challenge.

The next leg of the long drive towards home saw us leaving Cardwell and making our way along the Bruce Highway toward Proserpine. The highway wends its way along the coastal plain between the Great Dividing Range and the Pacific Ocean through farming land – mostly cane fields and mango plantations with some corn and tomatoes thrown in for good measure…. Cattle stations were intermingled between the agricultural farms and we drove through small and larger townships such as Ingham and Townsville.

Townsville is a larger city than Cairns and, although we drove via the bypass, the parts we did see looked clean and well designed. We drove past the sprawling Army base which was overshadowed by the large mountains behind.

We stopped at Ayr for a quick lunch and then continued on through Bowen…..home of the Big Mango….

At Proserpine we turned off the highway and drove out to Camp Kanga on the banks of the Proserpine River next to the Peter Faust Dam – a large body of water full of Barramundi that attracts fishos here regularly.

We were catching up with Gordon and Kerry’s friends Ross and Jan who camp here each year for the fishing.

Everyone settled in then went for a walk down to the river – cautioned by the campers to keep an eye out for snakes as there had been a few sightings of large Taipans in the campground and surrounds and a dog had been killed by a Taipan here a couple of days ago.

The river was flowing briskly over some small rapids and waterlilies were growing near the edge – very serene place!

Hard to imagine that further down the river is home to the largest population of salties on the east coast of Australia (or so we were told – Jan provided a photo of one they saw a few days ago while fishing!!).

Wildlife is abundant here with bush turkeys and small Proserpine wallabies that are unique to the area.

A communal campfire in an old bathtub was lit each night so we all ventured down for happy hour and an evening of many and varied “fish” stories!!