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Published: November 24th 2010
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Friday 19th November and we were still on a high thinking about our trip on the catamaran the previous day. We drove off to Emu Park and found the Singing Ship – a well publicized and unusual memorial to Captain James Cook who discovered and named Keppel Bay in May 1770. We knew that Sarah and Darryl had visited here and wondered if they had heard the ship actually ‘singing’ as it was for us this morning. It needed a breeze for the chimes to work and it must have been ideal conditions – how lucky we were! A young German girl happened along at an opportune moment and offered to take a photo of us. She was delightful though her boring companion stayed in the car. He didn’t even bother to get out to take in the scenery! She chatted with us for some time and she plainly loved Australia. She had read that 3.5 million Germans were here at the moment – we’ve met quite a few but not that many!
We continued along the Tourist Route from Emu Park towards Rockhampton but turned off towards Keppel Sands which was about 14 kms off the main road. There
were quite a lot of houses in the community - mainly holiday homes - which were spread along the beach road. There was just one store, a pub and a caravan park. Next to the beach was a pleasant stretch of parkland and a good map of the bay which gave us more of an idea where we had gone on our cruise. Later we drove on to Rockhampton and, looking for somewhere to have coffee, somehow found ourselves in the underground car park of a huge shopping complex – it was bursting at the seams – Christmas must be coming! We didn’t fancy that much so came away as fast as we could. We ended up in the new shopping centre back in Yeppoon which was also busy but not chaotic so we had lunch there at The Coffee Club. It started to pour with rain later that afternoon and continued all through the night - it was torrential. That evening we used the camp kitchen but because the weather was so bad we put everything we needed into the car and drove the 50 meters to the kitchen!!! Luckily we were the only ones using the kitchen and
we cooked the mackerel that Hans had caught on the catamaran the day before. It was delicious and we realized why it is that so many Aussies spend hours fishing.
On Saturday morning I got up at about 5.30 and had to wade through 6” of water to get to the amenities block – I rather wished I had a pair of good old ‘wellies’ instead of the “all weather” crocs with holes in! Fortunately our pitch was well placed - high and dry – but others were perilously close to being flooded. Graham got up a bit later on and one of the park staff was busy unblocking a drain which helped to reduce the flood – good on em! I’d had some toast and a cup of tea at 5.30am while Graham was still snoring but we both had some at 7.30ish – as it was still bucketing with rain that was about the only thing to do. Later in the morning we braved the road to Yeppoon and went to the same shopping centre we’d been to the previous day. It has an underground car park so access to the shops was easy and dry. Again
we had lunch in The Coffee Club café just as we had done yesterday and I even had the same thing again – a smoked salmon wrap (very boring I know but each time it was delicious). It rained without letting up for the rest of the day and night. Many people were checking their vans, tents awnings etc for water so we thought we had better check Sweetie out. We discovered that rain had penetrated in three places although one wasn’t serious. At the back, water had seeped into one wardrobe low down and also down behind the bed, probably from the same leak. There was nothing we could do to stop the rain coming in – we couldn’t actually find where the penetration had occurred so we put it down to the torrential nature of the weather. We pulled the mattress away from the wall and mopped up as best we could.
One large family of tent campers who had arrived late on Friday afternoon, spending a long time setting up for the weekend, packed up and went first thing Saturday morning as did a few others. We mentioned Roger in a previous blog - his son-in-law’s
caravan awning supports were bent very badly by the sheer weight of rainwater that had gathered in the overhead canvass and they had to get it repaired before they could put it away!! Les, who was on the cruise with us, had 2” of water in his Ute that he had to mop up. A big motorhome was completely surrounded by water and the occupants had to decamp to a cabin as did a young couple who were in a small tent. So, all things considered, we didn’t come off too badly!
We managed to get a bit of sleep Saturday night but it was still raining Sunday morning. We cheered ourselves up a bit by having boiled eggs for breakfast and for the first time we used the snazzy eggcups we had inherited from Sarah and Darryl. The caravan park staff again got busy clearing away fallen palm leaves and using a machine to suck up flood water and worked for most of the day just making good. That evening we nipped along the road for some fish and chips although Graham’s fish and chips turned into a chicken burger and chips!
Monday dawned and it wasn’t
raining although it was still cloudy. Les and Daphne had decided to move on today and were going south heading for Elliott Heads near Bundaberg so we said our goodbyes to them. We went for a walk on the beach but the tide was almost fully in and the sea was quite rough. The colour had changed from the beautiful blue of a few days ago to a murky brown. We went to Yeppoon again which had become a bit of a place of refuge for us and had a bit of lunch. Then we went back to the local art gallery that we had visited on Friday. This time I had some cash with me so I bought a few things I had fancied last time but couldn’t get because they don’t take credit cards. The lady in there had originally come from London and had lived in South Africa for a few years before settling in Corrowal, a nearby village, some 30 years ago. Back at the park I had a great swim in the pool which I had all to myself for 20 minutes or so. Amazingly it was still dry and quite warm and even the
sun tried to make an appearance – thank goodness for that! Graham had been in the pool earlier so now had settled down to some serious reading. We used the camp kitchen again but fortunately we were able to walk there this evening. The frogs were out in force – at least somebody liked all the rain! We hoped for a calmer night and some dry weather in the morning.
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