On leaving Hervey Bay we headed for the Discovery Coast and the small towns of Seventeen Seventy and Agnes Waters. 1770 is a historical town with a monument where Captain Cook landed for the first time in QLD and the second time in Oz. On the way there we stopped at Childers to see the heritage buildings, art gallery and memorial of the backpackers' fire, and purchasing something for morning tea from the local bakery. We positioned ourselves at a lovely caravan park in Agnes Waters for a couple of nights, and during the day went about exploring the area, we backed tracked all the way to Gin Gin to look at the Mystery Craters – an unusual natural rock formation. Their location, origin and unique mixture have baffled international geologists, and still remain a world proclaimed unsolved mystery. Then on to Rum Town-Bundaberg home of 'Bundy' rum where we took a tour of the distillery. It was wonderful to stand in the open doorway of the bond store to take in the aroma of the contents of the big wooden vats, and at the end of the tour we enjoyed a couple of drinks before going to the big barrel to find out the history of ginger beer, interesting but not as good as the distillery. We purchased a bundy liqueur only available at the distillery. It has already been useful toward off the cold of western QLD.
We left Agnes Waters for Rockhampton – taking in some of the sights, Capricorn caves, including the underground cathedral where regular operatic concerts as well as weddings are held, and heritage village.
Saturday we took a trip to explore the islands of Keppel Bay with Freedom Fast Cats. This was a full day cruise out to one of the many reefs on the Great Barrier Reef in a glass bottom boat in search of coral and tropical fish. While this was amazing and we got to see a lot of fish, coral and a small turtle, it was nothing compared to what we were to experience. After a BBQ lunch as we were taken through the finer points of snorkeling in the shallow fringing reefs surrounding Great Keppel Island and then we were kitted up with goggles flippers and snorkel, off loaded into a small rubber dingy and let loose into the crystal clear waters. We saw pristine coral and vast, abundant marine life, many different varieties of tropical fish, hard and soft coral, and one small friendly turtle. This was the first time we have ever tried this and for over an hour we had an absolute amazing time. On the way back we zoom netted out of the back of the boat. Naturally Marty just had to get to the bottom of the net where the impact is greaest.
Sunday had us packing up again but this time we went west to Emerald. After a morning tea break at a typical bush pub at Westwood and a stop to look at the Leichhardt "DIG" tree at Comet we duly arrived. The impact of the recent floods in Emerald was immediately apparent with some shops still closed to repair the damage. We have had a lot of connections problem mainly interfacing between our mobiles and computers and the sheltered workshop (help line) of our service provider was not helpful so we spent the day at a techo store in town. On Tuesday we visited the showpiece of Emerald, the Big Easel, which is basically a giant replica of Van Gogh's work "Sunflowers", which highlights Emerald's history as a large producer of sunflowers. We also followed the Mosiac path in town and then went fossicking for the first time at the nearby town of Sapphire. Sue found a sapphire that might be big enuff to put in a pendant at some stage. Marty found dirt. Then we went on a tour of a working underground sapphire mine in Rubyvale. The weather is certainly different out west and any need for a midnight ablute means the goolies are subjected to extreme cold which is not uplifting.
Wednesday 11 May saw us head further west to Barcaldine via the very little town of Alpha. We looked at the 27murals that are the town's unique identifier. The lady in the Information Centre was a source of much fun. She told us she was happy to get such intelligent visitors. We thought this might be a sly dig at the ACT number plates but she informed us that our enthusiasm for the mud maps of the area was not matched by a previous visitor who didn't want to look at them as she didn't have a four wheel drive and therefore would not be driving in mud. The same lady when chipped that the she was a dust puffer (bum close to the ground) said she might be short but could still stand on a piece of paper and kick a duck up the bum. Sounds like my colleague Anne Mac and is a story that will inevitably be told ad infinitum in the future.
