Blogs from Queensland, Australia, Oceania

Friday Left Halls Creek & we were soon on a rough winding gravel road, heading East, which soon changed to a better road & then equally quickly bad corrugations..bad enough to loosen your fillings. Riding on the very edge of the road seemed smoother but this had it's own challenges as suddenly it could turn into soft sand or a large pothole. Keeps you on your toes! After a while we experienced smooth long straights but even these were variable with the odd rough patch. Around 11am we stopped under a Coolibah ? tree to eat our service station sandwichs & take a break. Shortly after getting going again,we met 2 graders so the road improved where they had been working.100kms later, I experienced a rear puncture on my bike. Taking the wheel out we found ... read more

Time. It is constant, yet changes based on perspective. Recently, a stranger noted that you don’t realise how quickly time passes unless you have children. I don’t necessarily agree that you must have children to feel the effects of time, but they are useful measuring sticks. The passage of time can be acutely felt when you haven’t seen your friends for a couple of years and, what feels like overnight, they go from being parents of a toddler to a fully formed small person. It is then you realise how much time you have missed. And just how important the moments that we get to spend together really are. The past few years have really highlighted this for me, and so many others, so what started with a crumb of a possibility deep into the first ... read more

Part of the riverside site where the gardens are located was originally a botanic reserve. It was established in 1828 to provide food for the early penal colony. The City Botanic Gardens officially opened in 1855. Macadamia Nut - This tree planted by Walter Hill in 1858 is believed to be the world's first non-Indigenous cultivation of the macadamia. F. Jemmy Morrill and the brolgas sculpture - Queenslander Lindsay Daen created this bronze sculpture. It is on permanent loan from the Queensland Art Gallery. The sculpture is of 22-year-old seaman, James Morrill. In 1846, he was the sole survivor of an outer edge Great Barrier Reef shipwreck. Saved by the Aboriginal people, he lived with them for 17 years before returning to the European settlement in Bowen, North Queensland. He helped to improve indigenous and early ... read more

On Sunday morning we drove to Yepoon, but ignoring the directions of our navigation aid we went via Emu Park – and we are so glad we did as it took us along a coastal road with several beaches overlooking the Keppel group of islands even if they were hazy in the distance. Emu Park itself is a pretty little town and we struck it on a Sunday market day – the park, adjacent to the ocean and beaches, was full of stalls so we enjoyed a good wander, particularly admiring some Alpaca scarves and shawls (ahem, birthday coming up, John). Further along to Yepoon and rather than the sleepy seaside village we were expecting, we found it to be rather large and bustling. Along the foreshore a decent size concert stage was being set up, ... read more

Located next to the town’s sugar mill the Tourist Info Centre includes the Sarina Sugar Shed where we enjoyed a lovely morning cuppa before purchasing some treats of an epicurean nature to take home. There were tours of the mill available, but having done a few of these walk rounds previously we decided against joining in today. Instead I seized the opportunity of a “no appointment needed” haircut – definitely well overdue! The town of Sarinais an inland town, but not too far away (about 12kms) there is a little hamlet SarinaBeachwhere we enjoyed a lovely walk on the sand. A few clouds appeared in the afternoon sky, but checking forecasts for the next week showed there is only a slim chance of rain and temperatures are expected to remain in the mid-20’s.... read more