Aug 23 Town of 1770

I didn't know there was a place in Australia called "Town of 1770" until a german friend (Peter) told me about it a couple of years ago. So we had to go and visit and see it for ourselves. This is the site where Captain Cook landed on the Queensland coast in the year of (you guessed it) 1770. It's a lovely point of land and would have been even better if the wind was blowing a little less than it was on the day we were there. We spent the night in a gravel pit on the side of the road a few kms out of town. Bit noisy with passing traffic but we slept OK.

The windy point of 1770

The rough side of the 1770 point

Another rough side

The other side of the point where it is a bit calmer - where Cook went ashore

Aug 21-22 Rockhampton

We flew into Rockhampton a few years ago and stayed in a house for a week at a coastal town called Zilzie Bay. We really enjoyed that holiday and were looking forward to seeing the coast near Rockhampton again. We also had arranged for our mail to be forwarded to Rockhampton Post Office for collection. We arrived in the area on Sunday so obviously the Post Office wasn't open. We drove to Yeppoon, a large town on the coast and then continued around the coast to Emu Park and Zilzie Bay. What we remembered of a sleepy little village at Emu Park is now a happening place. Sunday markets were on and there were people everywhere. The beaches were still great. We stopped for lunch and a swim at Emu Park.

The beach view near Yeppoon

I saw dolphins playing in the water

Me and Prin just sitting and soaking up the view

The wind pipes at Emu Park

Views to more beaches at Emu Park

Princess poses for a special photo with me for Ruby

After lunch we drove on to Zilzie Bay and found the house where we had stayed on our previous visit. We could also see the island that Pamela and I swam to and I nearly drowned. Great memories.

The holiday house in Zilzie Bay where we stayed a couple of years ago

Views to the island out from Zilzie

The caravan park at Emu Park was very busy so we decided to drive back towards Rockhampton. We stayed at Gracemere caravan park about 5km out of Rockhampton. The following day we went to collect our mail, which wasn't there. Bugger. We then planned a round trip that we could do in a day so that we would end up back in Rockhampton again the following day. We stayed the night at Dululu, a quiet one-pub town, which had a neat free-camp area. We applauded the "No Generators" signs around the camp site. Unfortuinately for Judith our pleasant stay here was somewhat tarnished by the strange man who came out of the ladies toilet. It was after dark and a bit creepy as he wasn't a camper. We visited Mount Morgan on the way back the next day - another town famous for its gold mining history.

Fortunately, our mail had arrived on the Tuesday. After collecting it we continued our way south down the coast.

Gracemere caravan park

The local ducks get into Princess's food and water bowls

Lilly flowers in the nearby creek

Got a surprise when we opened the power box

Free camp at Dululu

Aug 19-20 Carmila Beach (Mackay)

Back to the coast again, we drove in to Mackay. Maybe Mackay had more to offer than we allowed it the chance to show us. But somehow we managed to drive right into the building works for a new shopping centre. That together with traffic lights, speed humps and skinny round-abouts in the main streets discouraged us from stopping and exploring. We continued south and found a camping ground that was right on the foreshore of a beach - Carmila Beach. In the words of a famous song, "I was thinking to myself, this could heaven or this could be hell." Heaven, because it was so close to the beach with lovely sunrise views over the water. Hell, because it was such soft and dirty sand that you had to drive through to get to the camping spots.

We didn't get bogged, but we did see one poor old bugger the following day become hopelessly trapped in the dry quick sand close by. Hopefully, the RACQ that he had waited on for a few hours were able to rescue him after we left.

The first night was good, apart from the annoying background rumble of generators until 9pm. We decided that we stay a second night. We had pleasant neighbours - Leon and Pam from Port Lincoln - but they decided to move on the next morning. That was a pity, because later the following day we came back to our site after a walk to find that a group of toothless boguns were setting up a small city of tents in the neighbouring spot to us. Hmmm, Saturday night; bunch of yobbos already drinking beer at 2pm... a quick decision was made and within half an hour we were out of there and looking for another place to spend the night.

Lovely spot on the foreshore of Carmila beach

Carmila beach at sunrise

First sunlight on the beach

Looking at our van from the beach

Sunrise over the low tide

After a late decision to move out of Carmila Beach, we needed to find a place for the night fairly quickly. We drove for longer than we wanted to but found a campsite at the back of a pub in Marlborough. Very basic facilities, but very cheap. We bought a serve of chips and gravy from the pub (take-away) to go with our tea of leftovers from the previous night. Marlborough is a very quiet little town. It may not be there for much longer...