Mackay

Mackay

Mackay is a large, bustling industrial city with massive building work in the industrial and residential areas. The sugar and coal industries sustain this city although the area of sugar cane is decreasing.  The city has several beaches, a harbour and a large marina area.

While in Mackay we took a tour of the Farleigh Sugar Mill which gave us a better insight into the production of sugar. Sugar has been grown in this area since the mid to late 1800's and was originally harvested by the Kanakas, workers from the South Sea Islands. The story and history of these people in this area has been well documented and celebrated with monuments, museums and meeting halls all in their honour.
Crawf was keen to do the "Paddock to Port" sugar tour but it was cancelled as the tour guide had to go to Brisbane.

The township of Eungella and the Eungella National Park approximately 80km west of Mackay was a great day excursion for us.
Eungella has a platypus viewing area and is a very pretty small town set high in the hills of the national park. The platypus area is best visited early in the morning or late afternoon.
We didn't see any platypus but were lucky enough to see at least a dozen turtles.

Unfortunately, the area was shrouded in fog for most of the morning but after lunch we were able to walk to a lookout to view the valley below.

The National Park has the largest area of rainforest in Australia.

We then visited the Finch-Hatton Gorge in the nation park and walked the scenic track to the cascades but didn't venture to the waterfall, the "Wheel of Fire" as the creeks were flowing and we didn't think it wise to risk getting too wet on a cold day.

The drive back to Mackay was interesting as cane harvesting was in full swing with harvesters, tractors and cane trains all in action. The cane fields are also quite beautiful with some cane in full flower (white), some not flowering (green), and the contrasting ploughed paddocks forming a patchwork effect across the countryside.



New Territory (for Us)

Rockhampton – Keppel Sands

We made our 5th crossing of the Tropic of Capricorn at the Visitors Centre in Rockhampton where we stopped for lunch before travelling another 45 kms to Keppel Sands.
Keppel Sands is a small sea-side town on the edge of Keppel Bay. Great views of the Keppel Islands can be had from the lookout and the area is very popular with fishermen.




Emu Park, another small sea-side town and Yeppoon, a large tourist town are a comfortable day trip away via a pretty coastal beach side drive.

Rockhampton is a busy modern city but also has the well preserved remains of the riverside port which was the life blood of the area in the late 1800’s.










A great Botanic Garden can be wandered through and a small zoo is attached to the gardens which makes this area very popular with families for picnics and parties and many weddings are also held on the beautiful lush lawns.









After spending two enjoyable, relaxing weeks at Keppel Sands, meeting new friends and some we had met previously, Crawf unsuccessfully trying his luck at fishing and me catching up on this blog and writing letters, we continued our journey northwards to St Lawrence Recreation Grounds.
We spent two nights at this “free” camp site which appears to be occupied by about 80-100 vans and tents etc every night at this time of year. We left a donation in the box to help maintain this great facility. While there we had a “christening” of Crawf’s fire bucket with a few drinks and a chat with several of our new friends.