A CORNUCOPIA OF CAPRICORNIA

It was now the end of June and getting a little cool at Agnes Waters. A sure sign to move further north. So I, reluctantly, paid my final dues at Workman’s Beach and  headed for the Bruce Highway again. There were many places I could stop, at least overnight, and maybe longer, from now on up the coast, but I had a few bits and pieces to sort out that needed a real shopping centre and so I aimed the Grey Chihuahua for Gladstone, the nearest large city.  Bad move. Bad, bad, move.

Don’t get me wrong. I am sure there are lovely people in Gladstone, but the place is one BIG industrial landscape. Coal City. And more. After the beauty of Agnes Waters, Gladstone was a bitter pill to swallow. So I didn’t. I just kept going through one industrial site after the other, until I hit the open spaces again. The next city was Rockhampton. OK , not ugly as Gladstone, but not the prettiest of cities either. More your industrial warehousing here, though the Stockland Shopping Centre was massive and a great place to get anything you wanted. 

Yes Cows DO cry!

The one thing that really damped down Rockhampton for me, though was when I left. I wanted to see the Capricorn Coast there starting at Emu Plains then following the coast to Yepoon. But as I came to the outer western suburbs, the houses became somewhat run down, almost discarded in a way, culminating where the road traversed the railway lines and boomeranged back up to the coast. 

Here were railway carriages full of cattle jammed into cars so tightly I wondered they could breathe. Their sad, bewildered eyes staring out at the hostile world. One looked directly at me. I swear it knew what lay ahead. Its eyes full of pain and disbelief. There was no one around to offer feed or water. No way to stretch their wracked bodies. A sentient species. As we humans are. But seen as a human commodity and as such offered no empathy. On its way to a cattle concentration camp. They are lucky even to be killed in this country. Torture and untold pain if, as many are, it is sent overseas to the butchery of foreign lands. The Governments way of refusing to take responsibility, despite what so many people here in Australia feel about Live Export. If you have the guts go onto Animals Australia's website (a fantastic Charity at www.animalsaustralia.org) It took the journey to Emu Plains to do what all of us humans do, to file it to the back of my mind as too painful a memory to keep. We are good at looking away.

And so… Emu Plains. A pretty little place with lovely coastal views and small but perfect shopping centre. I loved that it was small enough for everything to virtually be in walking distance. From the beautiful big RSL park at the back of Fishermans Beach next to the boat park and ramp, round to the singing ship monument up on the hill and along the Anzac wooden walkway with magnificent ocean views to the Anzac Memorial Cenotaph there, and so down to the next beach . All cradling the town Centre.  The singing ship monument and the Anzac walkway were my favorites. The singing ship is actually part of the bow of a ship which points to the sky, along which tubes have been strung on one side so that when the wind whips through them, they ‘sing’! Unfortunately there was not much wind that day, so it only had a little voice.

 But the day was young and there was so much more to see. So I took the main road towards Yepoon, and stopped at all the lovely beaches along the way. And those beaches were really lovely. They were the type of beaches I had been waiting to find. Queensland beaches. There’s something about queenslander houses and palm trees overlooking a beautiful ocean view that just says.. ‘tropics’. Even if the weather isn’t exactly tropical, and the houses aren’t always on poles, somehow beaches like these just bring on the Beach Boys songs. Kinka Beach was the first one. I pulled over and just laid back for a while, imagining a hammock between the palms. Then onto Causeway and Mulambin.  Gorgeous views here. There is a small tropical hilly headland next with a fabulous little park at the bottom overlooking the ocean , and an ‘easy’ walk up to the top of the hill called Bluff Point. This is a popular spot for many local walkers and fitness followers. And it is where I parked up for the night! 

As I had got there early enough I decided to do the ‘easy’ walk to the lookout that the posterboards there described, up through the lush mountain forest up to the stunning, far reaching views of the bay to the Kepple Islands and beyond. Now this is where my slow working brain is a detriment to me. Why didn’t it register that ‘easy’ and ‘mountain’ and ‘far reaching views’ do not go together. Nothing is easy if you have to go up a mountainside. And if it has far reaching views… how high up does that suggest? Yep. Pretty damn high. It was NOT easy. I don’t care how many other people were doing it, some in their joggers. It was steep. Yes I made it up there and the views were phenomenal, but when it said ‘a slightly steeper, dropping path will take you to  Turtle Point below’…. It was a NO GO. I would have loved to have seen the Turtles… BUT…. Back down on level ground again I found another reason to avoid this path again, at all costs, as a slender green snake slithered across the front of me. You gotta love Australian Nature. However I forgot it all as I sat with my cup of hot coffee looking out at the beautiful sunset that night, over the beach.

The next day, refreshed at a little smug with myself for doing some exercise, for once, I came away from Bluff point and went to Roselyn, a short distance away, where the ferries and cruises to Kepple Island go from. What a contrast. Here was a stunning modern Marina, with some amazing boats and small yatchts in the harbor. The houses at this Marina said it all. Money. Beautifully Manicured gardens, wrapped around, freshly painted and well kept little pied a terres. Even I thought it was lovely here! Secluded and select it had a peaceful, easy understated luxury about it. Aaaaah. Alas there was only one café there I didn’t think I’d exactly fit in with my thongs and old T Shirt. So I sat in the Chihuahua, drank my own coffee and gazed from afar.

Yepoon was a bit of an anti climax after this, but still held a surprise. As I drove in, I actually thought I had been there before! It took a few minutes for me to register that it wasn’t Yepoon that I was remembering but another , very similar, place. Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast. The beach front was under renovation, and it looked like the same type of design as in Caloundra. Walkways and all. It should be beautiful when its finished.

 Yes the  Capricorn Coast was a Cornucopia of delights.

"The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated." - Ghandi
The Grey Chihuahua