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Published: November 21st 2010
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Monday 15th November – we had thought about staying another night at Rockhampton but to be honest the caravan park was close to the main road and the noise from the huge trucks that went through the city was just too loud and continued all through the night. It had also rained heavily so I was feeling a bit sorry for myself as I didn’t sleep too well. We only had a short journey today as we were heading for either Kinka Beach, which was just a journey of 89 kms, or Emu Park. We didn’t rush to get on the road as we thought it best not to go through the city until the rush hour traffic had died down. We left at 9.45 and got through the city with no problems and headed towards Yeppoon, quite a large coastal town. We stopped, as usual, at the Information Centre and got some useful tit-bits. Outside we were accosted by a female Magpie Lark whose nest was just above where we had parked. She seemed to be attacking the car, particularly the wing mirrors, so perhaps she could see her reflection and thought it was another bird. Eventually she settled down
and went back to her nest.
We drove through the town and passed an attractive looking caravan park right on the sea front – very tempting but we carried on along the coastal tourist road which was very scenic and not busy. We went through several small villages and past a couple of caravan parks and carried on through Kinka Beach until we got to Emu Park which seemed a pleasant little village and which had another reasonably looking caravan park. However, the caravan park at Kinka Beach had been recommended to us by a family at Cania Gorge. It was a Top Tourist park and we knew it had a swimming pool. It was only a few kms back from Emu Park and not much further from Yeppoon so we thought it was ideally placed. Greg, one of the lovely staff at the park walked round with us to choose a site and we soon settled on one handy to all the amenities. The site had a concrete block and Graham got Sweetie right up close to it without any problem. On a wooden post by our site there were three cicadas, which are gruesome looking insects that
live underground as nymphs for most of their lives. As they approach adulthood they dig an exit tunnel and emerge ready to shed their skins, leave it behind and fly off to start the cycle again. Later on, by the office, there was one that had shed its skin and was ready to go - amazing! Later on that evening, when I popped into the loos I was greeted by about ten geckos, small lizards that seem to enjoy living in such buildings. They are unique amongst lizards because they make a sort of chirping sound, almost talking to other geckos! There were also plenty of frogs that hopped around and made plenty of noise after it got dark - it was clearly a wildlife friendly place!
The park staff were busy doing lots of tidying up jobs that they struggled to keep up with at busy times so they said to go back to the office and pay later. We didn’t mind doing that so we had a bit of lunch and relaxed for a while then went for a walk along the beach which was just across the road. Camped on either side of us were two
couples, the men of whom were old army pals. They meet up a few times every year and they were fascinating to talk to. The lady from the one couple and the man from the other were keen on fishing and we spotted them fishing in the sea as we strolled along the beach. We stood and watched for a while as they caught a few small fish so that was their supper sorted for them. We also chatted to Roger, a very pleasant 70 year old chap from Brighton, UK, who hoped to emigrate to Australia to be with his daughter and son-in-law who had already emigrated. They had all travelled down from Darwin and were thinking of settling in the Toowoomba area eventually. Like Graham, Roger had also had a triple heart by-pass op so he and Graham had plenty to chat about! We wish Roger well with his new life.
During the summer months in much of northern and central coastal Queensland, box jellyfish or stingers frequent the sea and people are advised only to swim in netted areas that are patrolled by the local life-saving clubs. There was nothing like that along that stretch of
beach and warning signs were up so, although it didn’t deter the anglers who were up to their knees in the water, we felt happier using the pool at the caravan park. Still, it was great wandering along – there were lots of different shells to look at. Back at the park we had a swim, paid up and cooked chicken on the camp bbq. We had thought about going on a cruise to Great Keppel Island and Graham went off to enquire. The park staff rang ‘Funtastic Cruises’ for us but they said they were unlikely to go the following day as we were the only ones interested at that time but they would ring back if the trip went ahead. Nobody phoned. At 9.15 on Tuesday morning we were just on our way out when one of the park staff rushed up and said the cruise people were waiting for us at the harbour and were about to leave. We felt totally unprepared to spend the day out at sea so said we wouldn’t go on that day. We felt a bit sad in case the opportunity had passed us by. But we carried on with our plan
to go to Byfield, a National Park which was along the coast on the north side of Yeppoon. It was a bit drizzly so we declined the “off road” routes to the main tourist spots but we found our way to The Bush Café where we partook of the usual coffee with raisin toast. On our way back we saw a huge bird coming in to land nearby and luckily Graham was able to stop and we could see it was a Brolga and there were two others there as well. We had seen these in the Northern Territory on our last trip but had not expected to see them here. Back in Yeppoon we explored the town and admired the lovely beach there. On our return to the caravan Graham rang Funtastic Cruises direct to see if they had any more trips planned in the next couple of days. Hans, the owner, said they would definitely be going out on Thursday and would look forward to making up for our disappointment at missing today’s trip.
Wednesday was a hot day and we had another walk along the beach opposite – the tide was just going out and this
had created lots of “streams” of water along the beach. As we walked we realized we were disturbing thousands upon thousands of soldier crabs. They were similar to the ones we had seen at Urunga a few weeks ago but vastly more in number. They are fascinating little creatures and it was amazing to watch them seemingly gather in separate ‘platoons’ and march away. They reacted swiftly to us just walking along beside them and rushed off almost falling over each other. If they are threatened they bury themselves in the soft wet sand by “corkscrewing” down and covering themselves. There was one instance where a bigger crab was lying in wait and got one as it passed too close. There were also a few curlew and some small waders on the beach busily feeding. We spent the rest of the day just relaxing and swimming in the pool and it was lovely.
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