Gympie to Gayndah

(written 31/7)
How quickly the country has changed, not even 100km west from the luscious green of Pomona and the last of the glasshouse mountains, and suddenly everything dries out, I find myself swept up by rolling brown hills, open box woodland and expansive plains, riding over creek bed after dried-up creek bed- a little bit like home. Only a stones throw from the trendy consumer cornucopia of Noosa and suddenly it's 70km between water and I'm having to pay $8 for a dusty packet of oats and a lonely refrigerated orange from a tiny general store/service station. Ah yes, this is more like the Queensland of my imagination. Like many, I feel I had fallen into the trap of identifying Queensland with its beautiful but touristy coastland. But that is merely the icing on the cake, the fringe on the lily, and I get the feeling I'm starting to really move to the heart of things.
What this land lacks in conveniences for the traveller, it makes up for in friendliness. I had hardbly been off the highway for 20minutes when the (relatively) quiet backroad produced my first new friend for the day- Martin- who's 4 years in to travelling the bicentennial trail with 2 horses (today in a car), and loves to stop and chat to fellow travellers. Further down the road I was invited in for morning tea by Les and Lorraine (to their friend Jan's house they were just turning off to), plied with chips and tim tams, a cup of tea, and sent along with cheery waves an hour later. And then to top it off, 3 young locals and their grandad befriended me in Kilkivan, quizzed me seriously about my survival skills (always go west, I'm told!), spoke to me of feathers, ladybeetles, mandarins and native bees (scared away by grown-ups but not my kids) and filled my waterbottle with cool sweet tankwater.

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Now I'm in Gayndah, accepted a gift of a bag of oranges this morning- wouldn't have normally, but tomorrow Ryan will catch me with a car and we head up to Cairns.