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Published: November 19th 2010
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Friday 12th November and we decided to have a fairly quiet day. We had the customary visit from the King Parrots and chickens first thing. We went for another walk along by the creek and as we did we could still hear the splashing noise and then Graham spotted what was responsible – turtles! We might have guessed but for some reason we hadn’t thought of them being here. Once we had seen one we saw a whole host but mainly they were just disappearing into the water! At least the mystery was solved! We strolled further along and a beautiful little male Red-Backed Fairy Wren popped into view – yet another first for us. He was a lovely little bird. The female was flitting about as well and although she was pretty she was just a plain light brown colour.
We had a swim in the pool after lunch and then just relaxed until bird feeding at 5pm – I still loved being part of the ritual! There were a lot more children there so it was lovely to see all the different reactions to having a parrot land on their head! Friday night was ‘fish and chip’ night
and we had ordered some, with a salad, to eat in the new café area. They were delicious and quite a treat. This covered area was a great place for a beer and a chat and had various memorabilia around the walls and some fabulously painted wood saws hung up. We’d love to buy one and send it home but no doubt that would cost a lot of money. We strolled back to the caravan through the bettongs after another pleasant day.
Saturday 13th - we had wondered about staying on at Cania but quite a few more people came in yesterday – weekenders - and we had enjoyed the peacefulness of the area so we decided to keep our wonderful memories intact and move on. So on Saturday we packed up and were on the road very early (for us so far!) at 8am. We had decided to take a chance with the weather and carry on a bit further north. We stopped at Biloela to stock up with fuel and groceries and get a quick cup of coffee then motored on towards Rockhampton or ‘Rocky’ as it’s generally known. We really noticed the difference in the temperature
and the humidity. The road was very bumpy and once we got to the main highway after Biloela there were suddenly more big trucks to look out for. We stopped at a rest area at Dululu for lunch – it was probably the sort of place that Sarah and Darryl would have stayed overnight as camping facilities were available and it was free! There was plenty of space, loos and bbqs but it was a bit too early in the day for us to stay. Otherwise we would have been tempted.
We were soon in Rocky and headed for a Top Tourist Caravan Park which was very handily placed. After setting up we made our way to the information centre and collected plenty of good ideas about where to go. Rockhampton is a very large city with over 60,000 inhabitants and is the ‘Beef’ capital of Australia. Actually we hadn’t seen too much evidence of there being a bustling beef cattle presence in the area except for a few huge plastic bulls dotted about the city. One of the ‘must dos’ was seeing the view of the city from Mt Archer. By the time we got up there the
clouds were gathering and it was a bit blustery but we still did the Grass Tree Lookout walk. It was almost dusk by the time we finished and although night falls very quickly in Aus we were determined to do another short walk to another lookout which overlooked the city. On the way we could hear loud chanting and singing and eventually saw a group of what we thought was aboriginal people. It sounded like some religious chanting or a celebration of some sort. By the time we got to the lookout it was virtually dark and a few other sightseers were there. They were as bemused as we were by all the singing and dancing. One of them was explaining that locals referred to visiting Mt Archer in the dark as “going up to hell”! It seems that at night the main streetlights of Rocky spell out the word ‘HELL’ except when there’s an event on at the sports oval when it becomes ‘HELLO’! Tonight it was just HELL.
By now it was really dark so we thought it best to leave the celebrations and drove back down the hill. It was lucky that Graham was driving slowly
as we suddenly came across a couple of young Frogmouth Owls just sitting in the middle of the road. They didn’t move and could easily have been run over. Graham got out to see if anything was wrong with them and they flew into a nearby tree – very strange! Perhaps they were simply dazzled by the headlights. We stopped at a Chinese Takeaway that offered a “help yourself Smorgasbord” and for $9.50 each we got some great meals to finish the day.
On Sunday morning we drove to the Botanical Gardens and parked by the Murray Lagoon which happened to be next to the zoo. Naturally we thought we would have to pay to go in to the zoo so it came as a very pleasant surprise to find that we could wander round free of charge. It was a small zoo being developed by the local council but still very interesting. They had the usual Aussie marsupials – koalas, kangaroos and three very large wombats that were fast asleep. There was an enclosure that said ‘coming soon: Southern Cassowary’ so we wondered if that would be a cousin of ‘Sydney with a Y from Cairns’. It was
a shame he hadn’t arrived already as I might have got a photo to impress Sarah and Darryl. They didn’t see a Cassowary in the wild. My conscience would have got the better of me and anyway they would know that there are no Cassowarys living in the Rockhampton area! There were some dingos, snakes and birds and although we don’t necessarily feel comfortable about zoos we enjoyed our wander round. After that we meandered round the gardens which were large and impressive - one of Rocky’s gems. It was full of beautiful native Australian trees (including the strange bottle trees), ferns, flowers and shrubs and also plants and trees from elsewhere in the world. I have always loved cacti and there was a wonderful cacti garden just for me! We somehow missed the Japanese Garden but we’ll get to see it another time hopefully. We had a very naughty but nice “all day breakfast” and then strolled back to the lagoon through the palm trees. On the shore was a family of black swans with a couple of cygnets and nearby was an egret, ibis and a darter and amazingly I got all of those in one photo!
We thought we ought to go back to Mt Archer as the morning had been lovely but as we approached dark clouds began to gather – perhaps it’s one of those places where it’s always cloudy or actually raining. Anyway, we carried on up, parked and did the walk to the city lookout again. It was a bit clearer this time so we could see the full extent of the city sprawled out in front of us. We walked on a bit further but by that time it was threatening rain so we called it a day and drove back to the caravan park. The weather wasn’t too bad down in the city so Graham had a dip in the pool and I read a bit of ‘The Reef’ (one of the books left by Sarah and Darryl).
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