The Sun was just rising over the Coral Sea as we walked to the amenities block to shower at 5:30am. Today was going to be just a transit day because we'd not identified any tourist attractions on our planned route from Yeppoon to Taroom. Rockhampton is known as the Beef Capital of Australia and  bull sculptures are strategically placed at several locations around the city. In fact yesterday at the Archer Park Rail Museum the Purrey steam tram driver made reference to one when giving me driving directions for the best way to Taroom and we certainly noticed it on the way out.

Not far out of town we saw a train loaded with coal headed in the opposite direction. We're not sure whether the coal was destined for export like the coal we'd seen being loaded at the Port of Hay Point facility or to the Stanwell Power Station which we had just passed, but the interesting thing was that the locomotives hauling the coal were electric, powered via an overhead line. The locos hauling coal to the Port of Hay Point facility were diesel-electric.

Theodore was our lunch stop. We parked by a small park which had a children's playground, opposite the Police Station. We had been looking for a bakery, but no luck and so bought a couple of milk drinks and some ginger kisses from the IGA to have with a ham and cheese sandwich we made in the van. Looking at the map we decided that we could drive further than Taroom and decided on Miles as our destination for the night.

Our route from Rockhampton to Melbourne is known as the Leichhardt Highway. So it was appropriate that we found that it was Ludwig Leichhardt who named the stream we passed over on entering Miles, Dogwood Creek on his 31st birthday, 23rd October 1844. 

After the long (480km) drive we thought a walk would be good and so after setting up the van at the Crossroads Caravan Park we drove into Miles for a walk up and down the main street. Just off the main street we found a bakery and enjoyed a milkshake and cream cake, which would mean a light dinner!