081. Day 86. Sunday 7th June 2009. Where’s Yeppoon? Right next to yeknife and yefork!

A little light rain during the night but we woke to a fine day. As we have to drive through Agnes Water to return to the highway we fuelled up and had a look at the beach. The wind had picked up, the swell was down but the surfing school was in full swing. The class arrives in an orange Coaster bus towing a trailer full of blue hire boards. The surfer dude who runs the school is none other than the guy who runs the bike hire. Today he is strutting around in his too tight wetsuit clearly delineating where he hides the family jewels. His bike hire place is on the drive out of town and I am pleasantly surprised to see the bikes are washed and parked in a long row awaiting todays participants at 2pm. Seems he has hit on a grand business idea and probably having fun raking in the cash as most of his participants are backpackers paying cash and keen to try surfing and biking.

Donnis has never seen Yeppoon so after a longish drive we arrive late afternoon and there being no Freedom sites available we go to a CP. A neighbour (permanent resident, wearing a heroin patch on his shoulder – later his lady friend neighbour appears and she is also wearing a heroin patch – seems they both have chronic back pain) tells me of a certain shop which has the best fish n chips. We walk the 400 metres to the shop, order our fish and take a stroll to find a fancy restaurant next door with dining on a deck overlooking the beach. We had not realised the CP was close to a beach.

For $13 we had the best fish n chips plus a dim sim, beat the Saltwater Café hands down on price and produce.

It would be nice to explore Yeppoon some more but we are both keen to be in Mackay this afternoon.