We are back in Rocky!
I flew back on Monday 16th and Darryl drove back and arrived on Tuesday 17th. My
first job
was to extract Shane from our bedroom - really not that difficult, as he had started shifting into the second bedroom. The biggest trouble was all of our stuff which was in that bedroom!
I managed to get it mostly out (there are still a few shelves in the cupboard to be cleared) so
at least he can walk to his bed. On Wednesday we started sorting out stuff in the house and Darryl worked on the garden. The biggest problem was that I walked out to the porch and
spied a big white-ants nest in the tree right next to the house. Now, this tree provided a lot of shade, but also a lot of very small leaves everywhere, so for me it was a bit of a love-hate relationship.....but it still had to go. Our gardens are also full of green-ants (which bit quite
viciously) so the whole thing was a rather painful affair. On top of that we had a beautiful grey
triangle palm (admittedly planted - by someone else - too close to the back of the house), which had died, so also had to go.....it was quite a sad day, and Darryl took about 5 truck-loads to the dump. The gardens now look completely devastated, and will need a lot of work - AND there is still one garden bed to be cleaned up! In the middle of it we had our
neighbour's parents-in-law stop by to chat. The walk an hour twice a day. They are from
Beijing and don't speak much English, in fact the wife doesn't speak any, which make the chats interesting!
We are just trying to get the tidying up done a bit at a time, but that boring monotony was
delightfully punctuated by Brett and Rebecca's wedding on Saturday. Bec looked stunning, and, of course, Brett was handsome, (as you can see from the photo), and it was a lovely wedding at the Catholic Church just near us, followed by a very enjoyable reception at the
Rockhampton Heritage Village.
Sunday was necessarily a rather quiet day, although we had Mark and Lois Gillespie drop by. We were planning on going camping for a few days, and really didn't know where to go, but Lois suggested Notch Point, just south of Cape Palmerston (south of Mackay), so we headed
there on Monday morning.
The actual location we ended up at was Yarrawonga Point which is the point just south of Notch. On arrival we could see beautiful bright blue water and a couple with a van setting up under some trees. We drove up over the hill and down onto the front where there was a lovely grassed area with lots of coconut trees. Sadly, there was a lot of rubbish around, as many campers have not taken what they brought home again.
This part was very exposed and the wind was really blowing hard, so after enjoying a salad under a coconut tree we headed back to the more sheltered part and set up camp.
We enjoyed fresh coconut then headed down to the water
where Darryl set a crab pot, and did some casting. He caught a couple of small flathead (which he threw back) and a couple of mullet which he kept for bait. Despite a high fire danger, due to the drought, we were able to have a campfire in the protected stone fireplace. The rump steak that we cooked was rather tough!
In the morning Darryl went fishing. He came back with the news of a very small male sandcrab in his pot and re-set it. He continued fishing and I went for a dip. The water was reasonably warm, but due to the wind the waves were pretty rough, so I didn't go in far. I basically spent the entire afternoon lying around napping and reading. Once again we had a lovely campfire, and due to the toughness of the meat from yesterday, I decided to use the camp-oven and make a stew with onions, mushrooms, steak and wine - it was delicious!
Wednesday revealed the same male mud-crab in the pot and two large females which Darryl said was full with eggs - what a shame! Despite all the fishing, there seemed to be none around the area. Two seagulls hounded Darryl for the remains of his bait fish!
We decided to pack up and head home, while checking out beaches on the way back. Using the gps and maps we took some quite interesting roads...most of which just petered out. One place showed a road heading to the beach and some houses, and when we drove in and discovered it went no-where turned around to leave only to be confronted by a farmer literally 'blowing his top', and totally not accepting our apologies....I suppose it was lucky he didn't have his gun!
That was the end of our adventurous attempts, and we stopped at Marlborough
for a 'loo break before heading down to the Fitzroy River at Yaamba to have lunch under a shady tree on the bank (while keeping a keen eye out for crocodiles). The photo is of the old pump station which supplied water to Rockhampton for many years.
On Thursday Darryl dropped me at the airport before he headed to the Dentist for some work to be done. I flew to Brisbane to help the rest of the project team celebrate the end of the project. We had a lovely afternoon at Merthyr Croquet Club at New Farm Park, learning to play the game. It was a lovely environment which I would recommend to everyone. I was thrilled to see the trophy that the project had won - the national IT Service Management Forum Australia
Award for the best ITIL Implementation for 2006! Sharon McKinnon, Sharon Rowland and I continued celebrating way into the evening and enjoyed a wonderful meal at a Thai Restaurant on Gympie Road, before they dropped me back at Sue's for the night. In the morning I was really chuffed to do a little shopping and discovered the shoes I had wanted to buy (Magic Carpet) at the pharmacy at Westfield Chermside shopping centre. I arrived back in Rocky around 3pm.
We have had a rather quiet weekend, but today we visited Archer Park Railway Station (the beautiful old Railway Station in Rocky) which was hosting an open day, and travelled on the Purrey Steam Train and viewed the various railway historical displays.
I went with the company 
