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Published: October 19th 2007
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Our resident musician
Trevor takes every opportunity to practice his guitar. Rockhampton - Mt. Morgan - Yeppoon
We decided to stay in Gracemere, just outside Rockhampton, for 10 days as our travelling companion, John, has three children living in the area so it was the perfect opportunity to spend some quality time with them.
Rockhampton is an attractive City, sitting on the wide, tidal Fitzroy River. It has some facinating old buildings very well restored. Rockhampton is the Cattle City of Australia, the Brahmen cattle being their pride and joy. There is a statue of the bull at the entrance to the city with bulls appearing throughout the city both as monuments and advertising banners. We noted a huge statue advertising a financial company with "VALUABULL" in huge letters. Another advertising a removal company blazoned out "RE-MOO-VABULL" and yet another advertising a leasing company with "LEASEABULL" written along the body of the bull. Trevor has been speculating what would be written on a bull outside a brothel !!!!!!!
We spent a very enjoyable morning at the Botanic Gardens, surely the best we have ever seen. It had every species of tropical plants and trees, the highlight being the splended Banyan Fig tree which throws out roots from its branches which root
when they reach the ground. These give the impression of curtains. All this and a well stocked zoo and all for no charge.
We travelled out to Emu Park and Yeppoon twice as it is such a lovely area, we paddled with the dogs in the Coral Sea which was luke warm. Great Keppel Island lies off the coast here in a beautiful turquoise sea. We have suffered the screaming of bats in the trees above our caravan every night and wondered where they go during the day. In the middle of a round-about at the entrance to Yeppoon we found out. There is a big area of dead mangrove trees and during the day there are thousands of bats hanging in the trees, in the full sun. You would think the sun would dry their wings out but they appear to thrive there, and the aroma is something you are hapy to forget.
We travelled out to Mt. Hay to fossick for thunder eggs but it was too hot to stand out in the sun. Mt. Hay is an extinct volvano and the rocks in the area, when cut in half, reveal the most wonderful and colourful gemstones. We
did buy one though so will have a pretty reminder of the area.
The best way to see this whole area is from Mt. Archer, Rockhampton and the Fitzroy River lie below you and you have a panoramic view from the sea to the hills leading to Emerald. Mt. Archer is certainly the affluent area with wonderful architect designed homes literally handing off the side of the hills.
The RSL clubs are a real draw card here, with delicious inexpensive meals, entertainment and pokie machines for a little fun. Not being gamblers we did not lose (or win) a fortune.
We experienced a dry willy-willy storm on our way through outback NSW and had to pick the debris from the radiator of our car. Two nights running this week we were hit by storms, the second coming from nowhere with extremely high winds and torrential rain with debris and branches blowing around with speed. Thankfully we just had time to get our awning in thus preventing damage. Quite un-nerving though !!
Mt Morgan is the home of our friends children and we had two visits there. Back in the late 1800's and into the 1900's this place was the site
of one of Australias biggest gold mine, and this is evident in the amount of miners houses still habitable. It really is the place that time forgot and you expect a cowboy or a herd of cattle to come along the road. David, Julie, Ann and their family made us very welcome and we thoroughly enjoyed the time we wpent there.
Trevor has taken every opportunity to practice his guitar, even sitting out in the Australian Bush to do so, evident in the photo.
Tomorrow we take off for the Bundaberg area so watch this space and hopefully it will be a little cooler. We have been experiencing temps in the mid 30's here with high humidity and thankfully our caravan site has a cooling swimming pool..
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nec2007
the bennetts
Looks like a lot of fun. Keep the blog entries coming. Nic