Bradley Thomas Kuhl, 24, casually walked into the petrol station on Rockhampton-Yeppoon Road on Monday, after slipping under the fence of the low-security Capricornia Correctional Centre on Sunday night.

He was serving a jail sentence at the Etna Creek prison farm for holding-up the same petrol station.

The 24-year-old was travelling in a stolen white Toyota Landcruiser ute with fellow escapee, murderer Tony Dwaine Morgan.

Kuhl returned to the petrol station again about 4.30pm on Tuesday, where he purchased food, before stealing petrol.

But police were not alerted to Kuhl’s visits to the petrol station until Wednesday morning.

The two prison escapees did little to hide their identities while on the run. The pair continued to wear their brown prison uniforms, while casually stopping by supermarkets and local pubs.

Kuhl brazenly walked right past a wanted poster bearing his own name and photograph when he stopped to buy beer from the Tree House Tavern at Cawarral, east of Rockhampton.

The 24-year-old purchased a six-pack of XXXX beer from the tavern about 12.20pm on Wednesday.

Barman Trevor Hurren, 65, recognised the escapee immediately.

‘‘His photo is up on the wall right beside where he walked in, but he didn’t notice,’’ Mr Hurren said on Wednesday afternoon.

‘‘The police put his photo up this morning for us ... I recognised him straight away.’’

Mr Hurren said he also suspected something was amiss because Kuhl was ‘‘overly polite’’.

‘‘He said ‘thank you so much, thanks again, thank you, thank you’,’’ he recalled.

Mr Hurren dialled triple-0 as soon as Kuhl left the tavern, but police did not catch up with the men until they stopped at the Keppel Sands Hotel about four hours later.

Police spotted the men on Keppel Sands Road and gave chase. They pursued the escapees along Emu Park Road, where they rolled out road stingers.

‘‘One tyre was deflated, forcing the men to stop,’’ Detective Inspector Darrin Shadlow said.

‘‘They were arrested on the side of the road.’’

Both were still wearing their brown prison uniforms, Inspector Shadlow said.

It is not clear whether the men had consumed the six-pack of beer bought from the Tree House Tavern before their arrest.

Despite spending more than 72 hours on the run, the escapees made it little more than 50 kilometres from the low-security prison at Etna Creek.

On Monday night, the men were captured on CCTV footage shopping at an IGA store in Emu Park.

They casually walked through the supermarket, past the bananas and Easter eggs, about 7.20pm, but disappeared before police arrived.

Meanwhile, a manhunt is also under way for drug dealer Howard Lindsay, who was reported missing from a work camp at Blackall, in central western Queensland, on Monday morning.

Authorities are also searching for sex offender Stewart James Dawson, who disobeyed a home detention order at the Fortitude Valley in inner-Brisbane.

Police Commissioner Ian Stewart said officers suspected someone helped Lindsay escape from the Blackall work camp.

‘‘Just simply walking away from work camp is probably not the smartest thing,’’ he said.

‘‘I would imagine that a lot of the work we’re doing is looking at if people actually actively supported them getting away from these places.’’

There have been no sightings of Dawson.