Bundaberg to Rockhampton

Our research told us today's drive was going to be pretty boring with monotonous scenery. We were heading to the city of Rockhampton which was less than 4 hours away. There wasn't really much of interest left for us to see in Bundaberg. Last night's turtle hatching was phenomenal! After reviewing our Lonely Planet guide, we decided to take a diversion to the little town of 1770 and Agnes Water for lunch and a look around. This is where the most northern of the Australian east coast surf beaches are due to the influence of the Great Barrier Reef.

What a great idea that was! This is a beautiful seaside town with some breathtaking views of Bustard Bay and the headlands. This is where Captain Cook landed in 1770 to claim Australia for England.

We did a short walk at the headland to take in the ocean views

There were hundreds of butterflies hovering around us as we walked. I finally had one of the blue butterflies we have been seeing for the last couple of days land long enough to get a photo.

Some really nice vacation properties here...

We went back to the park in town and had a walk along the boardwalk. A great little park at the harbour complete with the "public" Aussie style BBQ's.

The temperature got up to 33 C today so we weren't up to walking much more and retreated to the only cafe/bar across from the park for a cold drink and lunch.

The tide was going out and revealed and interesting harbour at the beach / river.

We saw a really convenient way to clean the hull of your catamaran when the tide is out.

After a couple of hours there, it was time to get back on the road. It was a boring three hour drive to Rockhampton. The scenery is pretty well much the same, sparse trees and grasses km after km. The only good point was not much traffic on the chip and tar 2-lane "highway". The only thing I found interesting was passing a 100 car coal train heading south about every 30 minutes. I assume they were heading to a coal fired generating station(s) somewhere south of us.

Rockhampton is a "cowboy" town and a little rough around the edges. We had a hard time booking a motel here a couple of days ago and finally figured out why. This was one of the areas hit by cyclone Marcia a week or so ago. All of the mid priced hotels/motels are full of workers brought in to do clean-up duties. There were a lot of downed trees yet to be cleaned up and several blown out restaurant signs. Mostly hamburger places (Hungry Jacks and McDonalds). We did find a motel on the outskirts of town that was at best, OK but way overpriced.

Tired after spending a long time in the car, we did not want to drive all the way back into town so we found a tavern a couple of km down the road. This was an interesting place.... Sort of the ambience of The Legion with newer furniture. Order your drink at the bar, pre-order and pay for your food, pick it at the counter, all while the patrons are either playing trivia, keno, pokies or betting on the horse races.

Rockhampton is supposedly the "beef capital" of Australia so I decided to order their "steak of the week" which was supposed to be a relatively small premium cut. Somewhere in the translation between my Canadian english and Aussie english, I ended up with their Wednesday night special steak. A huge 1 lb slab of rump steak with potatoes and salad for $15. It was actually quite good even though I was only able to eat half of it.