Day 27 to 28. July 16 and 17 2022. Blacks Beach / Mackay. Transplant.

The other rule we have now made is that we don’t book in the major centres, we stay at a town just before or after it. Not that Mackay was bad, but Blacks Beach was right on the beach. Sawtell was lovely instead of Coffs Harbour. Burnett Heads a quite little town instead of Bundaberg. Linda has done an amazing job of booking ahead for the whole trip so far.

Mackay is a nice enough town, but it seems to have had its heart ripped out with a gigantic mall built right next to the CBD. The mall is new, shiny and has all the same shops as every other mall around Australia. It even has two Coffee Clubs as obviously one coffee isn’t enough to power you from one end to the other. It is bustling at 11:00am on a Sunday and is the place to be. We take a walk into the main town to check out some of the murals and it is almost completely dead, save for a run of breakfast outlets in a tiny version of Brunswick St. It feels the heart has been ripped out and been replaced by an artificial one off to the side. Sure, it is a nice and new and will perform much better, but it could be anywhere in Australia, there is nothing to say it is Mackay.

Other than that, Blacks Beach has a 6km stretch of beach that we gave a good going over, but still haven’t dived in for a swim.