Rockhampton - This Town, Is Coming Like A Ghost Town

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Our Stop Off In Rocky

So, because of the miscalculation in our schedule (we'd been told that our Whitsundays trip left on the Sunday instead of the Monday) we had an extra day to kill before our next trip at Airlie Beach. We had an option to either spend the extra day at Hervey Bay, Airlie Beach or anywhere in between. We opted for in between.

Browsing through the Lonely Planet, we noticed an entry for a town called Rockhampton and that in this town you could go to the Dreamtime Cultural Centre for an Aboriginal tour which included boomerang throwing. This sounded like fun, looked like a good way to spend our extra day and would also break up the journey between Hervey Bay and Airlie Beach.

The bus left at around midnight so it was after another restless sleep on the Greyhound bus that we arrived at Rockhampton at around 6 in the morning. After collecting our things, we found bag storage facilities and had a spot of breakfast as we figured out where about we were in the town. A short walk later and we were in the town centre, although it was eerily quiet even for this early hour. This was the first indication something strange was afoot.

We had to kick about until the tourist information office opened to get some details of how to get to the place but once we got in, they told us the Aboriginal place was shut on Saturdays. Not only that, but practically anything else of mild interest was also closed. There was a farm stay option nearby which would have been a lot of fun, but that needed 24 hours notice and it was 120Kms out of town (planning ahead is definitely underrated!). Things were looking bleak. We were going to be stuck in this town for 18 hours with nothing to do! None of the locals looked or acted very welcoming either.

The tourist guy tried desperately to help us so he gave us directions to the Botanic Gardens which housed a basic, free zoo. After getting there, it was a bit underwhelming and the zoo was a wee bit worse for wear. It was now midday, so we had killed some time at least. The weather was nice at this point so we got some lazing time in the Botanic Gardens and caught some sun.

We headed into town and went into the library for some free internet but the woman there was extremely rude to us, particularly Emma. We still ended up being in here for a while as a sudden storm came out of nowhere. When we left we headed to an Irish pub for a beer but the clientele here even seemed very rough around the edges. The term "redneck" sprung to mind and it wasn't a good sign when we saw them drive off in their cars after having a good few beers, so it wasn't that drastic a generalisation. We asked about a cinema in this place but the woman said it was a long, long walk away.

But we had time so we ended up walking the long distance and ended up seeing the film 21. After it finished and we had dinner, we headed back to kill some more time before our midnight bus. It had been a long 18 hours and this place felt extremely weird. There was no one even walking on the streets and very few cars. No shops had even been open and when we had been walking at least 3 cars had shouted inaudible things at us. We also later found out in Airlie Beach that there had been a lot of attacks on females in recent weeks in the town and not many other people we met seemed to have nice things to say about the place.

One change that did occur though was the crossing of the Tropic Of Capricorn, which meant, for the first time since Singapore, that we were now back in the Tropics. So, more rain? We'll see...

It was an experience at least, but not a mistake we're hoping to repeat. It felt good to get out of the place and it's definitely not a town that I'd ever recommend anyone to go to, so heed our warning.

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Photos

Tourist Information
One of the nicest buildings in the whole town.

Bird
An exciting installment in Rocky!!

Koala
Sleeping??

Ghost Town
Busy Saturday afternoon in the main shopping area.