on the road again

after our fabulous day enjoying the Great Barrier Reef, we had a day to drive down the coast from airlie beach to gladstone. our drive was enjoyable, although we didn't really drive "down the coast" - it was far enough inland that we didn't see much of the ocean. but we did get to see some banana plantations (farms? orchards?), and a bunch of sugar cane plantations (i'm pretty sure that one's right). definitely sights i don't see much in arizona (or california).

b-a-n-a-n-a-s

sweet sugar cane

we also saw a lot of funny road signs, throughout all of our drives, actually. apparently, driver fatigue is a serious concern in australia, probably because their cities are pretty far apart and there is not a lot of population in between them - no mcdonalds or starbucks to stop for a refresher. so there are a lot of signs that say, "stop, revive, survive" and stuff like that. the best ones were "rest or RIP" and "driver fatigue kills everyday people everyday". some of the signs were accompanied by illustrations of cars crashing (head on, of course), which was a little creepy and a little funny. on one long patch of road, there were road signs that had trivia questions (australia related, of course). they would have the question, and then a minute or two later, the answer. after a few questions there was a sign that said, "keep playing trivia. it could save your life." i got a good laugh about that one! but i didn't get a good picture, because i was driving and sarah-mae was napping. the best sign we saw, by far, was one that just said, "speedo check" -- i can only assume that "speedo" is just short for "speedometer" (aussies shorten everything they can!). still, the idea of a true "speedo check" is hilarious.

they are not messing around

anyways, we had a nice drive to gladstone, where we found the gladstone backpackers (which was not very well marked!), checked in, and got ready to head to Heron Island the next day!