Day 8, 21/7/2019, Sunday Bony Mountain to Palm Beach, clear  4 – 25

We wake about 6:00am with cold noses. The diesel heater quickly kicks in and takes the chill off. I’ll swear this thing is better than our heating at home.

It’s a clear morning and the farms around us are a picture. By 9:00 it’s already climbed to 14 degrees and we’ve noticed another interesting freedom camp, the RV stop at the little town of Allora on the New England Highway, though it certainly wouldn’t be as quiet as Bony Mountain. A few kilometres later we pull onto the Cunningham Highway. Warwick is to our right and the peaks of the Great Dividing Range to our left. This is an interesting stretch as we commence to climb, small farms on black volcanic soil are a delight to behold, you know, the places where you briefly think gee I’d love to live here. Then you remember how cold it gets at night.

The air changes as we enter lush rainforest and drop suddenly down the east face of the range, 9 kms down to the coastal plains. We turn east again at Aratula and wind through hills towns of Boonah, Beaudesert, Canungra and Nerang and onto the Gold Coast Freeway. Oh bugger, we’re back in the city.

We’re staying at Tallebudgera Caravan Park and we have a roomy corner site with glimpses of the Creek and views of …the Gold Coast Highway. In fact 10 paces from the Gold Coast Highway and… a bus stop. Woody’s brother, Woody the Elder and my sister in law drop by for a drink and a chat but we have to talk loudly over the noise of the four lanes of highway traffic whizzing past. We know this area well so I have a quick walk along the creek to the beach, just to make sure that the Pacific Ocean is still there, then we grab a pizza from the food truck in the park. The parks that allow food trucks are certainly a bonus for weary campers like us. The pizza is pretty good but we barely make it through an episode of Midsomer Murders before we’re both sound asleep despite the traffic noise.

Summary 223kms, power, water, toilets, showers, fridge on power. $48. Constant traffic noise.