Rockhampton and Emu Park...

The Tropic of Capricorn passes through the city of Rockhampton so part of Rocky is in the temperate zone and the other part is in the tropics zone.  Another claim to fame for this city is that it is the ‘Beef Capital’ of Queensland. It has a prosperous past and is not doing too bad in the present either. It has a number of private schools which cater for students from the country areas who need to attend boarding school.

The marker showing where the Tropic of Capricorn lies

The Beef Capital ? lol

Central Queensland University has its main campus in Rockhampton and in the mid 1990s I completed a bachelor degree in Education through CQU’s excellent external studies’ program. DH and I walked around some of the central business district and we found a charming ‘old fashioned’ department store called ‘Stewarts’ with beautiful stock. Another thing which visitors to Rocky can find to be a bit different from the norm...and that is that the train line runs down one of the city streets...cars, buses etc drive along beside the trains sharing the roadway...

here we are giving way to not only cars, but also the odd train or two!

One of the lovely old buildings in the city centre

A bridge over the majestic and wide Fitzroy river which flooded in January

Then we headed off to Emu Park to our motel. Emu Park is a beach district slightly to the north of the city and is not overly developed...it still has a 50s ambience and is very pleasant. We went for a short walk to the beach and happened to notice a bridal party having photos taken on the beach. Jessica (Bruce’s god-daughter) and Chace would be getting married in 24 hours...also on a beach.

The wedding party we saw on the beach at Emu Park

We finished our day with a pretty ordinary pizza from the shop near the motel. We expected to be able to buy some groceries and make our own meal but the new supermarket wasn’t opening until Nov 16...we were too early.