A day heading west up the Pioneer River Valley past a few sugar mills and to the top of the ranges at Eungella. Here we see many turtles and a couple of platypus in the stream. The quiet forest is very relaxing and the boys even find a few new bird species.

With the return of pesky warning light troubles in the car we drop the caravan off at Renee and Sadique's house in North Mackay and head into town. The car news isn't good with replacement wiring required from Melbourne, so we might be here for a while as the car is deemed unsafe to drive. As a replacement we have a 7 seat Ford Territory which gives Fras and me plenty of seat choices! Baby Ishaan (11 months) enjoys our company - different playmates to Mum, Dad an...

Dad reckons he's very lucky to be fishing on his wedding anniversary - he's even luckier because Mum catches the fish! We enjoy fishing off the harbour rockwall although the tackle count is high. For dinner we have a great feed at a tapas bar (it was actually called a beer cafe) where we share lots of yummy food.

The curlews weren't too bad although they wander around the park along with some busy mobs of whistling ducks. A day exploring the local shopping centres where we get a few supplies for the van. We find a water park at one of the town beaches and we just had to try it out didn't we.

As we head south along the coast we reach Airlie Beach which has many shops and a wide range of accommodation centred on the harbour and marina. It's a key location to access the Whitsundays and we saw many people with suitcases, backpacks and luggage walking around. We counted over 20 bush stone curlews in the caravan park so it might be a noisy night!