Day 1. Monday 27/7/26
Final preparations and headed Northbound for Lucinda early afternoon on the Bruce Highway (A1). At Deeragun several ambulances and police vehicles sped past northbound sirens blaring and lights flashing,
70kms north of Townsville a huge line of backedup higway traffic ended the journey.
A serious road accident had occured less than an hour before, a few km north of the "Frosty Mango" (Mutarnee, Crystal creek). (That's where the emergency vehicles were headed)
People got out of their vehicles and rumors along the line, plus facebook posts indicated that the accident victims were badly injured but still alive. A 2 car head-on collision had occured at Studs rd, Coolgie.
An unmarked highspeed police chase vehicle slowly came along the traffic line, something that Max Rockatansky would have been be proud of, letting everyone know that it would take 4-6 more hours to clear the scene. Many cars ahead had alread done U-turns back towards Townsville.
There are no feasible alternative bypass routes for this stretch of the Bruce highway, no sub-parallel secondary farming roads, because the rugged coastal ranges come down fairly close to the highway and coastal fringe farm access is only from the Bruce Highway. The ranges are like a major logistical barrier, there is an inland highway about 100km west that services cattle stations and remote outback towns, but its only linked to the coast in a few sparse locations, the nearest was from Townsville.
Decided that camping at my boatshed was the best bet, it was only 25kms south. Found a side road to do a one point turn-back, traffic was backed up several kms by then. About half the qued traffic u-turned back and half had to wait until the Bruce was open again, sometime that night.
