Bullett’s Birthday Trip – The Road Trip to Rocky.
Day 7 – Glass House Mountains to Bullett’s – Gracemere near Rocky.
Today we woke to our first wet day. It was pouring at Toast’s and maybe not such a good omen for travel north towards the floods. We had been watching the TV news and keeping track of road closures etc. We rang Jill the night before to get the latest info. on whether we would get through and get to their house and all was fine. So off we set.
We called into Murray Cootte’s at Landsborough for him and Gerard to swap motor sport stories and shock absorber stuff. Murray now has his own shock absorber business and employs his son and two others to work with him. His garage was impressive and he certainly has a good his business. His wife, Linda, was lovely too, but we needed to hit the road as we had six hours of driving in front of us.
The roads were fine, a few potholes here and there, but no water. Plenty of places where you could see where the water had been and signs of flood devestation, but all was quite OK. We got to within about 50kms of Rocky when we heard on the radio that the roads would be closed in and out of Rocky to the north and south on Sunday (tomorrow) and that no-one should be travelling north of Gladstone or south of MacKay. Bugger!! We were north of Gladstone, and that explained the lack of traffic. No probs, though, we cut across from the main Bruce Hwy to Gracemere, which is South West of Rocky, and arrived at Bullett’s about 6.00pm. We crossed a small ford with a trickle of water across it and we had to go through Jill’s Dad’s property next door as Bullett’s gate was blocked by a big puddle and lots of mud. Over Christmas their paddocks were flooded and they couldn’t get in or out, but now all that is gone and they are nowhere near the Fitzroy river and its floods. Can’t get into Rocky, though.
The look on Bullett’s face when we got out of the car was amazing. He was thrilled to bits and so surprised to see us and amazed that we had travelled all this way for his birthday. It was worth every km. He was amazed that Jill, Gerard and I had planned all this and that he had no idea. We had a lovely dinner, lots of chatter and a couple of ports. We decided to stay put for Sunday and will head out on Monday, back to Toasts. It won’t be a problem as we will go back the way we came and not go near Rocky.
