Some more of our trip...

On Saturday morning before the wedding, DH and I explored some more of the beach areas around Rockhampton. We went to  Rosslyn Harbour, where the boats that go out to Great Keppel Is (and other Whitsunday Islands) leave from. It had changed a bit since last time I was there in the early 1990s. 

The view out to sea from Rosslyn Harbour

The golf course at the Capricorn Resort formerly owned by the Japanese industrialist,  Mr Yohachiro Iwasaki

A bit more of the Capricorn Coast beach front

 We also walked around the town of Yeppoon which is another pretty beach town. These towns would all be bustling in a month with the holiday crowds coming in droves.

Part of the main street in Yeppoon

The new Town Hall in Yeppoon

The view from the beach at Yeppoon

The last photo is one that DH took of where the wedding took place, taken from the beachside park above the beach...very pretty spot. I’ll post photos of the wedding the next time I write.

FNSI...

The last month has really flown and I nearly missed signing up for this month's Friday Night Sew In (see the button on the righthand side of the blog). But I remembered on Thursday and put my name on the list.

I left a comment on the site saying that I probably would not finish my project ...and it was indeed a self-fulfilling prophecy!! lol. I signed up for a Christmas Challenge (Jodie, the Haby Goddess) a little while ago and true to form have dithered about what to make. It was obviously a Christmas gift I had to make and the theme was 'Red and White'. I've fallen in love with long hexagons this year, so decided to make a table centre using these shapes. I haven't done this sort of sewing for a while and the magnifying glass on the 'Daylight lamp' got a real work out on Friday night! As you can see in the photo, there is still much to do before it is posted in early December.

On my mind...a family wedding

I'm joining in with Rhonda's Down to Earth Friday feature, 'On my mind...
Last Saturday DH and I went to a wedding. It was a young couple and all the guests wished them a long and happy marriage and life together.
Two weeks ago my BIL, G, decided that the time was right to marry his partner of 31 years, fiancee for 9 of those years. G has suffered a number of health problems in the latter half of the year including 2 smallish strokes which have affected his right side. Recently he was diagnosed with early stage leukaemia and he has also suffered from emphysema for a few years as well. He continues to smoke heavily which upsets DH so much...However he has done a lot of thinking lately and has realised how much his partner means to him...he also knows that being married is important to her.
Any way back to the story...G has chosen a date and was adamant that the ceremony had to take place on that day, November 26. The problem with that date was that the '4 weeks and one day' notice of intention to marry was only 3 weeks. DH's cousin is a marriage celebrant and, with her help, the family pulled together and helped the couple get all the relevant paper work in order to apply for a dispensation.

B and G at my birthday lunch this year

Our cousin, the celebrant

 These papers and extra forms and letters (from the doctor) had to be submitted to the registrar general's office in the city. My 'job' was to be the driver...I drove DH, G and B (the bride to be) to the city, dropped them off at the loading zone in front of the building,and then drove to the first suburb where I could get a shady park. When they had finished, DH rang me and I drove back to get them. Then they broke the bad news to me...I had to drive back to the city again in an hour as they needed one more form. (I haven't made it clear how much I loathe the central business district...but I hate it!) The next time it was DH and the marriage celebrant who went in and in 6 minutes they had the permission required. Luckily, because it was into peak hour time now, I just did a circuit of the business district which took about 8 minutes.

George st, Brisbane

Until then we'd been sworn to secrecy but now we could spread the word. The short notice has meant that some of the family are unable to come but come Nov 26, at 2pm, in G and B's backyard, friends and family will share this occasion with the couple. DH and I are the witnesses and we are truly honoured.

My other 2 SIL and I are busy planning on providing some sweet treats as a special request of the bride. DH and his other brother are paying for the celebrant, who being family, has taken $200 off her fee. One SIL is providing some champagne and B's sons are working at making the backyard all spruced up. The bride has bought a lovely outfit and the couple have finalised the details of the ceremony with the celebrant.

I can't really say that we're welcoming a new member to the family...B has been part of this family for 31 years, she really has!

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.

Our journey north continues...

After 2 nights in Hervey Bay relaxing, on Friday morning, we packed the car and headed north towards Rockhampton. The drive took us through many cane growing communities and we even shared the road a few times with those huge machines that are used to harvest the cane. (Possibly leaving one farm and heading for another using the road; one contractor with the expensive machinery can cut cane for others who don’t have that equipment)

We didn’t see any cane trams on our trip; these are the quaint little narrow gauge trains that are used to transport the cut cane to the mills or to depots where the bins of cut cane are transferred to trucks and then the trucks take the cane to the mill. Many of the old mills are gone or closed and I guess that means the cane has to travel quite a distance to the mills still left operating and trucks must be more suited obviously.  The main highway bypasses one important sugar town called Bundaberg or Bundy as it’s nicknamed. (famous for Bundaberg Rum which is distilled from sugar)

Heading slightly inland and north, DH and I stopped for brunch in a town called Childers. I love Childers, it’s such a lovely town full of life and a vibrant community. Childers is associated with a tragedy which happened in 2000. A backpacker hostel in the old Palace Hotel, was deliberately set fire to and 15 people lost their lives. The arsonist was caught and is in jail but the local community has honoured those who lost their lives in a memorial and have always welcomed relatives and friends of those lost in the fire with ‘open arms’. Being backpackers most of the victims were from overseas and a number of families have made a pilgrimage from places like the UK to see where it happened.

The main street of Childers; the old palace hotel is in the middle of the photo. A new backpacker hostel has been built behind the hotel

What a clever name for a dentist!

An old movie theatre on the right as we headed out of Childers

Our next stop was Calliope River at a little outpost type of place with a kiosk and a historical village. DH had a lie down on the bench seats in the picnic shed while I went into the kiosk to order a snack and a drink. We were both affected a bit by the heat...it was sure hot! of the highway.

We became aware as we drove along on our trip that a lot of government money is being spent on roads...some roadworks are repairs to flood damaged roads, others are making improvements especially to dangerous sections of the highway.

The road bypasses another main coastal city, Gladstone. Gladstone is a big industrial town with smelters and refineries. Residents complain of pollution problems and diseased fish caught in the harbour in recent times have caused some concern. Government scientists reckon the fish are safe to eat...residents are not so sure!

We arrived in Rocky (Rockhampton) mid afternoon and had a walk and a drive around the city. But I’ll tell you more about that in my next post...

Our travels...

It's a little while since I've written a post so over the next few days I'll try to remedy that situation. Last Wednesday, DH and I started driving north as we were heading off to a wedding in the Rockhampton district. In my previous post I wrote of our stop at my niece's place on the Sunshine Coast. After that, we made our way to Gympie, an old gold mining town, where we stopped for lunch. I had packed the esky with the makings for some sandwiches which we had at a picnic spot just outside the town.

We also drove through the picturesque town of Buderim on the Sunshine Coast

Lunch at Gympie



 As we drove north from Gympie, we headed into sugarcane growing territory. The season lasts from May to december, so most of the cane had been harvested. Some paddocks close to the road had ratoon crops (what sprouts again when the cane has been harvested) that were over 30 cm tall. We were stuck behind one truck loaded with cane that was throwing back some of its load on to our car! The next city we reached was Maryborough.

Like Gympie,Maryborough suffered in the floods that hit the state in January this year. The part of the city that we drove through showed no evidence of the devastation. We skirted around the outskirts of the town so I haven't any photos of the gracious old buildings in the city centre. In its early days, Maryborough was a very prosperous city with a lot of  industry and of course, wealth. 

A tantalising glimpse of Hervey Bay in the distance

From Maryborough, we continued north to our destination Hervey Bay, where we would stay for 2 nights. Hervey Bay has long been a popular place for people from the south to retire to. It is also popular with families as a beach holiday destination without the glitz and crime of the Gold Coast. Tourists also flock to Hervey Bay to board 'Whale watching' cruises...sadly for us, these tours finish early November. In 2006 DH and I went to Hervey Bay for the other main attraction...Fraser island, a magnificent sand island which is now a National Park. In its early years of white settlement the island was the scene of many extractive type industries, but now it's just controlled eco-friendly tourism. 

An old whaling harpoon on display at the Hervey Bay Marina

One of our favourite places in Hervey Bay is Urangan jetty. It is 863 metres long but used to be over a 1000 metres long. There used to be a railway line from nearby Pialba to Urangan and the trains actually went out on the jetty carrying coal, sugar and passengers to waiting ships. Sadly the line closed quite a few years ago.

The jetty at Urangan

 A sculpture near the jetty (the fish and the boy!)

Part of the Esplanade at Hervey Bay Some of the beaches are named after English beach towns eg, Scarness and Torquay



On the road again...

On Wednesday, DH and I started driving north. Our first stop was at my niece's place. Our little great niece has grown so much in the 2 months since last time we saw her and is now stringing sentences together.

We had time for story reading as well as a walk around the garden admiring the lovely healthy veggies that my niece is growing. We all shared the piklets that I had made and then after lots of hugs and kisses DH and I set off to continue our journey. Our destination on Wednesday night was Torquay in Hervey Bay.

I was spoiled in the US where we had free WiFi access in all but one place where we stayed in the 7 weeks. In Hervey Bay WiFi would have cost $20, and here in Emu Park, I've bought 2 hours worth for $12.95 but have spent so much time uploading photos to FaceBook and the photos in this post...I think I will post about this trip when I get home!