On to Rockhampton 31st May 2010

Mo to Monday 31st May
We woke to a much chillier day with the temp going down to 15 deg overnight!. We even had to put a blanket on the bed to keep us warm. However the sun came up to another clear blue sky. We breakfasted and showered early and started to pack up and headed out of Agnes Waters just after 9 am.  As we only had a couple hundred odd kms to go for the day we took our time driving through Miriam Vale and on to the

 Bruce Highway. For a major highway it is still only two way traffic with the overtaking lanes placed every now and again. With all the heavy trucks using this road it sometime  gets very congested and driver fatigue causes most of the crashes which occur on this highway. We ensured that we allowed the trucks to pass us whenever it was safe to do, so they weren't trapped behind us, as we weren't in any hurry.
Our coffee stop was in Mt Larcom which had the best pies and coffee in town. As we couldn't see any other shops around we supposed they did have the best. Well we had to make do with instant coffee as surprisingly the coffee machine had broken down,which was fine by me, however their meat pies were the best, which accounted for the numerous tradies stopping by to purchase them for their lunch.

We drove through RAGLAN and kept our eyes open to see if we could see the Garden Centre and the Camping and Kite Centre. Unfortunately that was in Wales on the other side of the world.

 With the road running alongside the rail line we saw many coal trains, some of which must have had over a hundred coal carriages.
Hitting the road again our next stop was the South Side HolidayVillage in Rockhampton  where we decided we would set up for a few days so we could have a good look around Rockie. Having checked in and found a shady place under the palm trees we headed to the tourist information for maps and to see whats happening in the town.



Beatrice enjoying her coffee at the Mt. Larcom Cafe.

Clare was very helpful at the "I" giving us all sorts of ideas and places to visit. A day cruise to the Keppel Islands, The Archer Park Rail Museum,The Rockhampton Heritage Village,The Military & Artefacts Museum,The Capricorn Caves, the 'Dreamtime' Australias largest Aboriginal Cultural Centre and a drive up to Mt Archer. which we decided to do right away as it was past 3 pm and most of the other places we would need more time for.

The views were great, though it was quite cold up there, however we could see right across Rockhampton and out on the other side to Yeppoon and the Ocean, where we hope to take a day trip out to Great Keppel Island.

With that we made our way back to our home and dinner. Tomorrow we must remember to take our photos at 'The Spire' which marks the where we cross the Tropic of Capricorn.

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Rockhampton The Beef Capital of Australia