To Rockhampton, then heading back West.

What a novelty - our compass is showing that we are heading back west.  Its all a bit depressing, really.  I mean, I know that the half way point time-wise was a couple of weeks back, but we weren't facing home then.  Not that the adventures have stopped - we're in the Wild West of Queensland!  My inner cowgirl is fighting to the surface - I wanted to buy an Akubra.  Then I found out that they cost $150.  Some R.M. Williams boots?  $150+.  Inner cowgirl has been sent back to her box.....
Anyways, to the story:

DAY 52 (16th June):  From Gympie, we headed even further north, stopping at Maryborough for the night.  We looked around, found ourselves the most crowded campsite that we could......

..... and then headed into town to have a look around.  Now, Maryborough, quite inexplicably to me, has a Big Ned Kelly.  ANOTHER one.  But I'm not really sure why.  The Kelly family holidayed in Queensland maybe?  It was outside a like named roadhouse, but still..... why would you even call a roadhouse that?  Although, fuel prices these days - it IS highway robbery........ boom-tish!

In a park in town they had steam train rides, on a very odd looking steam train.

Perhaps Maryborough's biggest claim to fame is that they are the hometown of the author of Mary Poppins, P. L. Travers.  I did not know that the author was even Australian!  But they really play on it in town, even having some kind of annual festival that involves nanny races, a chimney-sweep .... something... and the like.  So wer found the statue of Ms Poppins - the building in the background being the house Ms Travers grew up in.

Then I returned with props........ look closely, Serena!

At the tourist bureau, one could even BECOME Mary Poppins!  So one did.....

Entertained sufficiently, we retired....

DAY 53 (17th June):  We headed for Bundaberg, and stopped in at Hervey Bay for a bit of a look-see. We did have an unexpected find of a big(gish) prawn:

And then we found the jetty, with a cool little sculpture.

At the Information Centre, we were told that there was a free water park down on the foreshore, and seeing as it was a degree or two over twenty, and sunny to boot, we thought we'd best take advantage.  So off we went..... to find.....

IT WAS CLOSED!  Well, technically, it was open, but there was no water.  Great......  So we went down to the beach so the kids could have a bit of a play.  The tide was out, so we looked under rocks..... and if you REALLY squinted, you could catch some little critters....

 Teeny-tiny!

Then onto Bundaberg - lots of sugar cane around here.

DAY 54 (18th June):  Bundaberg has a couple of big things, and the first one that we went to have a look at was the Big Bundy Bottle.

And I don't even like Bundy......

Have to warn you, that if you think of going here, something about what they do to the sugar makes the place reek.  Ugh!  But we got the photo and the sticker to prove it, and then left to find the next one

The Big Barrel!  Which is the shop front for the producers of the Bundaberg Ginger Beer range.  We did the tour - they had an hilarious video about Dave the Yeast!  Possibly not intentionally hilarious..... but anyway.

That's Dave and his friend the bee......
From Bundy, we continued on, heading for Rockhampton - the beef capital of Australia!  (Ha, NSW, you didn't get them all!)  On the way, we spotted a sign for "The Mystery Craters".

A farmer caught his plow on one, so they excavated and found these craters.  They ARE really odd!  Some have water, and others (right next to the water ones) don't - none of them are connected.  A couple of the water ones have been excavated to 16m deep.  Supposedly even the scientists have no idea of how they were formed.  Go figure.

Back in the car, we passed a Big Crab:

Who could have done with a bit of a touch-up, and then we were in Rockhampton.  Who had taken a similar line to Scone, and had some cattle themed businesses.  I didn't notice any public toilets with signs of Heifers and Bulls though.  Just can't imagine why.

DAY 55 (19th June):  Got up this morning to find J had raided the flower beds of the caravan park to bring me a lovely bouquet:

which I felt like I had to hide so as not to be told off!

There didn't seem like there was a heap to do or see in Rockhampton, but they did have the Big Cow.  Or Cows.  There are four of them, we only got the shot of one.

This is the one on the way into town.  There IS a big dugong as well, but the place was closed  :(
So, this was it - we were now officially starting the journey home, and headed off west.

What a novelty to see this direction on the compass  :)

This part of the world is coal mining country - and they do pretty long trains.  We counted 100 carriages, and then 4 diesels pulling on one of them

 

Had lunch at a little place called Dingo, and Pete found his version of a Big Thing that made him very happy...... 

We stopped in a place called Emerald, which has the Big Easel:

It's pretty big.  Possibly almost the biggest of all the big things so far.  Very impressive.  Loses points for a slight lack in the cheese factor.  Gains points for a "What the...?" factor.  Now if it had been a painting of an emerald........

In our camping book we saw that there was a nice place to camp about 20 kms out of town, Lake Maraboon, which is meant to hold more water than Sydney Harbour.

 It was a lovely spot, and we saw that if we went to the lake, we'd be able to watch a sunset over the water - what a plan, right?  Let me tell you how to NOT do this.

First of all, you need to drive down there with the intention of barbecuing, and then realise that there are no barbecues.  So then drive back and get your camp stove.  It's okay to do this, the campsite is only a five minute drive away.  When you return, you need to realise that it's no good having just the camp stove, you need the bbq plate thingy to cook on.  Return to get that too.  It's ok, sunset is still a good 20 minutes away.  THEN, you need to have a child kick a football into the lake, just out of reach.  And also realise at about the same time as this that there are no matches to light the camp stove, as they are back with the camp kitchen.  One parent then needs to throw rocks at the football in the hope of making waves to get it back to shore, the other parent needs to realise this is not going to work, and go off and take some sunset shots anyway:

 Once the sun has gone down, and having ditched all plans of barbecuing, the male parent must realise that there is no way that the ball is going to be able to be retrieved without a chilly dip, and also realise that the female parent is in no way going to get HERself wet to get the stupid thing.

Male parent retrieves the ball.  In VERY chilly water.

Sun has by now disappeared, family returns to camp and barbecues there.  AWEsome.  All part of the adventure......

 DAY 56 (20th June):  We woke up in the morning to the sound of some very raucous birds, who turned out to be quite hungry.  This was one of those times where I realised that the journey itself is much more the adventure than whatever you plan to see along the way.  The kids were just entranced....

 Miss J couldn't decide whether to be happy or otherwise when this happened

 We all had multiple birds sitting on us while feeding them

 She was much happier here!

 M was the most successful!  They loved him - I wonder whether it was the bright jacket.

The bird boy in action  :)
When we finally packed up and left, we headed out into the gem fields of Queensland, where they creatively name their towns "Sapphire", "Emerald" and "Rubyvale".  They are tiny towns, but obviously still had room for some big things!

 The Big Sapphire at Sapphire.  Could do with a coat of paint!

 The Big Pick and Shovel, also at Sapphire.
There's lots of little places that you could fossick for yourself, we stopped at one that you bought a bucket of dry gravel, and washed and sorted it yourself.  It was pretty cool - you can imagine how people would give up their lives to follow gems or gold or the like!  We found a few - most worth nothing, a few small ones, and a couple that could be cut/polished to give a reasonable stone.  You'll note we haven't upgraded the camper trailer or anything, so there was nothing big!

 Looking for tweasure!

 That's a sapphire, folks!  A STAR sapphire - they're really striking when they polish them.  That was one of the "decent" ones we found.

 Nothin' like child labour!
So after finding not so much, we continued on our way.

 This is the Big Ring, also at Sapphire.

 We didn't go there.   Pete said he'd showered that day..........  :D

 The Big Miner from Rubyvale, who's looking a little worse for wear.  There's a sign advertising the Booby Dazzler mine for sale in front of him, so I guess he's not been getting the TLC he needs.

Tropic of Capricorn you say?  Why, I reckon we need us a PUB to go there!
From the gem fields we then travelled on to a little town called Alpha for the night.....

DAY 57 (21st June):  After some early morning googling, I discovered that Alpha..... really had nothing much worth seeing!  Its caravan park was nice though, albeit a little chilly. 

 So from Alpha, we continued on towards Longreach.  And along the way......

 We stopped at a town called Jericho, which had Australia's smallest drive in.  Complete with the radio things that you hook on your windscreen  :)  It didn't have any walls though......

And then at Barcaldine, home of the Tree of Knowledge, a gum tree that is a memorial to a shearer's strike, and is said to be the birthplace of the Australian Labor Party.  Someone killed the tree a few years ago, so they built this massive structure around it.  I suspect if it was windy enough, it would be like a giant wind chime.  Very impressive.

 On the streets of Barcaldine, Pete found another Big Thing that tickled his fancy.  You can see what the tree of knowledge structure looks like in the background too - its the big black box thing on the right.  Not so attractive from the outside....

I took this because it looked like a Big Thing.  Turns out they make windmills big in these parts.  Saw a few more of them in the next few days.  But this was the FIRST!

 DAY 58 (22nd June):  Longreach had a couple of fantastic attractions.  The first was the QANTAS museum, the town calls themselves the home of QANTAS.  We did a tour of a 747 - really interesting as you get to walk under the plane and see what all the doo-dads do, and in the plane and see all the stuff you normally never do.

 The kids in one of the engines.
The second thing we went to was the Stockman Hall of Fame.  If you're ever in the neighbourhood, go there!  The show they put on is great.

 Trying on a Akubra for size.  We were told that each hat needs 27 rabbits to make it, so if all Australians bought one, we wouldn't have a rabbit problem.  Now, they've just got to think of something to make out of cane toads....

 It was a one man show, and a mix of animal handling, yarning, and bush poetry.  This guy was awesome.

 Bareback, with a guitar.  As you do.

 A dinky-di bullock team.  It took him a good ten minutes to hook them up, then ten more to get the log, then another five to get the log onto the cart.  Just imagine the time it would have taken to get a cartload, back in the day.

 They're pretty gosh-darned big, them-thar bullocks!

Back at the campsite, they had a different kind of bird (brolgas) that wanted feeding - and they weren't too scared to come right up and be very demanding about it either.  I learnt that its much better to hold bread on the flat of your palm than in your fingers, as their beaks are quite strong.  At least I learnt it, and not the kids I guess!

 The Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame.  Go there.  Its great.
We then returned to look at the QANTAS museum (we had to cut it short earlier because of the stockman show!)

 We noticed that our tour plane was called the City of Bunbury - evidently they draw a city name out of a hat when naming planes!
Then it was on the road again - and what a road it is:

 

 Not much scope for I-Spy, let me tell you!

And that's where I'll leave it this time, hope you're all well!

K, P, M & J xx