Rockhampton to Airlie Beach

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Wednesday 23rd we left Rockhampton and drove 150 kms round the Yeppoon Loop, reputedly a scenic drive, and it certainly looked green through the swish of the windscreen wipers. The rain stopped intermittently enough for us to walk up to the headland at Emu Park and hear the singing ship. Another memorial to Cook this, a concrete ship-shaped installation with organ pipes hanging from the top which caught the wind and hummed tunefully. Apparently some have been blocked off as they proved too noisy for local residents. The main reason for us going round the loop was to visit Cooberrie Animal Sanctuary. A steep $20 entrance fee was well worth it, as there were many kangaroos, wallabies and wallaroos to feed - several with joeys in pouches - a baby cassowary to see, a sugar glider (small possum) to stroke and a koala to hold. The koala, Risky, cost $10 to cuddle and I enjoyed every cent of it. He sniffed at my nose, chewed my clothes and hair and clung on tight with his two thumbs. His mother had died of leukaemia and he had been handreared, with a stuffed toy koala to keep him company in his cage. After we chatted with the owners who had originally come from Sheffield. There are a lot of ex-pats out here, enjoying life, but always happy to talk about England.
We then drove 250 kms up the coast and camped by Carmila Beach. When we first arrived the sea was far out but three hours later the tide was coming in, and we sat on chairs on the beach, Kev on his ipod, me singing to myself, while clouds scudded across the moon. I went to bed and left Kev to his bottle of wine, and there he stayed till the bottle was empty and his feet were nearly wet.
Early next morning I got up to low tide again and walked down to the edge of the sea, too shallow for sharks and too far from a river for crocs (anyway I could outrun them on land). I avoided the little rivulets, I wasn't sure how far into the shallows box jellyfish can go. It took me 20 minutes to reach the water, and as the tide seemed to be turning, I came straight back again. There were a couple of patches where I sank to my ankles - panic! - I hadn't thought of quicksands. By weaving about I manged to stay on sandbanks and reached the top of the beach. I then couldn't find the path back to our van, and wandered up and down for another 20 minutes before finding it.
The whole of this coastline has box jellyfish. We saw a few stranded by the receding tide in Mackay. One was clearly still alive, a tube gently pulsating under the gelatinous mass, the whole thing about nine inches across. They look disgusting, even without knowing that their sting paralyses and is excruciating.
Thursday we drove up to Mackay tospend two nights there - not a lot to do other than try and find a jellyfish-free area of beach. (Failed - we found a netted area onthe beach, but at low tide there was no eater in it, and the holes in the net did not inspire confidence). We went to the cinema, (Charlie Wilson's War), ate at the Hog's Breath Cafe (owner was ex-pat from Scotland), had a very nice homemade pie at a cafe ('Friday is Pie Day!'), and I went to the beautician and hairdresser.
Saturday 26th - Australia day - we went to MacKay Marina where, according to the lady in the Tourist Information Bureau, there would be a thong throwing contest (flip flops). We couldn't find it, but found a lot of young Aussies with Eskies full of beer, some of them throwing water and washing up liquid down a long piece of plastic sheeting on a hill and then throwqing themselves down in it. It looked like a lot of fun and bubbles.
We left them to it and drove 80 kms westward into the MacKay Highlands as we'd heard there was a very good chance of seeing platypuses in the wild there. It was a beautiful drive up the Pioneer valley and the van chugged the last 10kms round the hairpin bends to Eungella Tourist Park, overlooking the valley. The platypuses at Broken River were busily diving and feeding at dusk and dawn - they are so much smaller than I expected, only about the size of a water rat. In between spotting them we watched the turtles, an eel and a brown snake swimming downstream. I also watched two white cockatoos. He was introducing his inamorata to a couple of holes in a tree. He poked his head in one, pulled out some debris, squawked at her, then flew to a different branch while she examined it more carefully. Then they flapped their wings at each other, cocked up their head feathers and started a long conversation which may have been foreplay. I left them to it. I felt a human with a lens attached to her head may inhibit procedings.
On Sunday after a platypus viewing and a 2km walk through the rainforest, we tried to go to Finch Hatton Gorge, a beauty spot and popular swimming area. The recent floods had closed the road as the river over the ford was too high. Some people were risking it, but our van isn't 4WD, so instead we went to the Pioneer River where we'd seen people swimming. I walk down to the rocks to where it looked easy to get in, slipped on the algae and fell arse over tit into the water. I couldn't swim back, the force from the rapids was too great, but managed to grab some tree roots a few yards further downstream, and clambered out into a sugarcane field. Kev, laughing uproariously, brought my shoes along to me. Then I watched what all the other swimmers were doing. They slid into the water upstream from the rapids, let the water carry them around to where I'd gone in, and get out there. I did it twice with one of the kids there and it was like the rapids at Center Parcs. Some of the kids were using huge lorry inner tyres to shoot the rapids. Their mother was sitting nursing a bruise the size of an egg on her shin, having fallen more heavily than I had.
Monday we left Eungella, and visited another animal sanctuary (I did, Kev said he was beginning to feel the same way about animal sanctuary as he did about mosques, and he had a sleep in the van). I fed a few more wallabies, had soulful eye contact with a koala, looked in vain down the wombat tunnel, and had a few conversations with some cockatoos - bit one-sided this- I told them about the courting cockatoos I'd seen, and they said 'Hello'. Then I had a very nice chat with the lady who ran the place, she was Swiss but had studied English in Highgate 40 years ago, had a swim in the pool (rescuing two stranded frogs from it first).
By this time Kev was awake so we set off to Airlie Beach. On the way we booked up our 3 night sailing cruise round the Whitsundays, which will start on Wednesday, and got ourselves into a campsite in Airlie Beach. We're looking forward to some luxury for a few days, not having to think about where to go and what to do and just have food put in front of us.

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