We’ve spent a lot of time on the road this past month, combining my work travel with a little more exploring of the areas around us. CQUniversity has campuses all over Australia, with many campuses within a few hours drive of Rockhampton. As part of my role as Head of Course, I’ve been spending time promoting speech pathology at the University’s Open Days which are basically drop in information sessions for high school students trying to decide what course they want to take in uni. The first place we headed was Mackay, which is about a four hour drive north of us. Mackay is a much bigger city than Yeppoon but not nearly as pretty. Even though it’s right on the coast, we didn’t see any beaches while we were there, a sight we are so incredibly spoiled by at home!
While I was busy working, Rob kept himself busy at the transportation show. Basically, he said if it had an engine, it was there, including some old planes.
Since we were already as far north as Mackay, we decided to drive the extra hour so to Airlee Beach once I was done with my Open Day stuff. Rob had been to Airlie Beach when Zoe came to visit, but it was a place I’d never been.
It was fun to be near bars and have access to so many different restaurants for a few days. I think we ate oysters every night while there!
We also took the ferry and headed across to Whitehaven Beach in Whitsundays for the day. Whitehaven beach is on the edge of a protected island and is one of the few places that has pure white sand that runs the length of the beach. The sand is 98% pure silica and incredibly soft. It’s an absolutely gorgeous place!
Next up was a weekend to Gladstone and Emerald. Gladstone is about two hours south of us and is basically a mining and industrial town. The university campus in Gladstone is situated at the marina on the edge of the water so it’s a beautiful spot.
Emerald is a small town about three hours west of us and is primarily a farming and agricultural community. It’s an interesting little town with not a lot to do. When I asked the uni staff there what we might do after the Open Day, pretty much the only thing suggested was to travel to the outskirts of the city to see the dam, so that’s what we did.
It’s hard to tell in this pictures but this area really shows the massive drought conditions Australia is experiencing right now. The cows (the black dots in the middle of this picture) are actually grazing on the floor of the waterbed, in an area that should be metres deep in water. The driving we’ve done these past few weeks have really allowed us to see the drought conditions first hand. We passed farmer field after farmer field in which cows were grazing on what looked like dirt. We also passed kilometre after kilometre of burned vegetation along the roadside, where fire fighters have been trying to prevent significant damage of forest fires by back burning. At home, we often smell fire from the trees burning in mountains close by and I’ve even driven through smoke-hazed fog on my way to work. While we both appreciate the constant blue skies and sunshine here, Queensland is in desperate need of some solid rain!
On the way home from Emerald, we stopped at the Blackdown Tablelands State Park. The views from the top of the mountain were stunning!
We did a bit of hiking through some beautiful trails but again, were saddened to see the lack of water in any of the streams and waterways we crossed.
Our road tripping is complete for now. It’s been a busy few weeks but we can now add a few more pins to our map.
