If you were to draw a line from Rockhampton to Yeppoon and then to Emu Park (and Zielzie) and back to Rocky, you’d have put a border around some of the most scenic and interesting countryside in Queensland. There are a number of geological features called ‘plugs’ where rocky outcrops appear to have been forced out of the ground. They look almost like pimples on the landscape. These were created by volcanic activity millennia ago.

I am constantly amazed by the foliage. There are many spectacular species of old trees like the Fig tree below. The area is very easy on the eye. One bay follows the other as you head south from Yeppoon. There are at least 15 bays and headlands. One never tires of walking on the beach at any tide. As the bays are very shallow you can walk into the sea forever it seems. Every day we have 23 degrees C. Only a slight breeze…  Yeah I know, it is really tough to endure!!

  and another tree:

However, I am really surprised by the interesting history of the area as some of the links below might indicate:

The town of Rockhampton was created in 1853 by the Archer family. Soon gold was discovered and a 50 year gold boom endured. The largest mine was at Mount Morgan. Initially sheep were farmed and these were later replaced largely by cattle. This area still is a major cattle area. These industries attracted the populations in the early days. These days there is a substantial coal mining industry as well. In the process Rockhampton has become the capital of central Queensland.  The wealth from the gold boom resulted in riches that afforded the building of the many beautiful buildings that have been preserved and adorn the town and river frontage.

In the early days roads were constructed to Yeppoon and Emu Park. There was no road from Yeppon to Emu Park as the Causeway lake at Kinka beach presented an insurmountable barrier. A railroad was built to Emu Beach where the wellheeled had their coastal homes in this slice of paradise.

Some of the history at the link below:

http://library-resources.cqu.edu.au/cqcollection/manuscripts/short-manuscripts/rockhampton.pdf

This summarises some of the main industries of the early days like Beef, gold mining and natural wealth. Gold was found throughout the region and in places was very lucrative like at Mount Morgan.

Some old images showing early Rockhampton at:

http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/news/old-images-show-how-much-rockhampton-cbd-has-grown/1894214/

A summary of early development can be found at

http://ajthompson.com.au/capricorn-coast/history-rockhampton-environs-early-settlement.htm#.VcHpAfmqqkp

The history of Yeppoon is similarly interesting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeppoon

A quick summary can be found here:

http://queenslandplaces.com.au/yeppoon

Further info includes Emu Park where we have been a few times now:

http://www.cqhistory.com/places/yeppoon.html

I have just had a look at a list of shipwrecks to be found off the Qld coast. There are literally hundreds of them. In some cases Queensland towns derived their names from the name of a shipwreck in their vicinity, for example: Coolangatta at the Gold Coast

http://oceans1.customer.netspace.net.au/qld-wrecks.html

Needless to say the above is just the tip of the iceberg.

I spent some time on top of Mount Archer. The hill overlooks the city from about 9 km  away. It shows off the big Fitzroy river snaking through then landscape. There are some stunning views for 360 degrees.

Locals call this town Rocky. As has been said earlier, Rocky has a population around 85,000.  It is a nice size town, but surprises in how neat it is being kept by the local council. It has a lot of ‘old world’ charm. The town center has a large shady main street that is wide and has many well maintained British colonial buildings. The old Post Office building looks almost new, but has been converted and sports a lovely coffee shop serving great coffee and good cakes. The town is about 40 kilometers from the coast

The ‘Oxford pub in the main street offers great pub meals and has all the local beers on offer. We had the Curry and rice meal. This was beautifully spicy and was a substantial meal. It cost only $8.00. Cannot believe how they can do it so cheaply.

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After a week out in the sticks at Baffle Creek we were ready to move on to our next destination. This was Yeppoon 330km further north. We had enjoyed ourselves in Baffle Creek, walking along deserted beaches and living in a quiet caravan park. The beaches were cluttered with trees from the recent cyclone. This had also eaten away at the dunes and caused substantial erosion in some places.

We left for Rockhampton in the early morning and headed north along the Bruce Highway (A1). Rather disappointingly the road was in very poor condition at times. There were ruts in many places for kilometers at a time where the years of heavy loads had squashed the road surface to create humps in the bitumen which made it look like a track. That is very disappointing for a state freeway.

The way it affected me is that my truck would sway from side to side and the caravan would do its own thing and sway in a different beat. This created some tricky driving. I had to wrestle the rig many times to make sure it did not wander onto the wrong side of the road. I was pretty much exhausted by the time we got to Yeppoon.

The way it affected Dawn was that there were many loud screeches of panic as she reached for the ‘Jesus’ bar and of course there is no such thing in the Navara.  The  “Jesus’  bar was a large handle on the passenger side of the dashboard of the Nissan Patrol.  People could hold on to this as they got into or out of the vehicle. It was used mainly by frightened passengers to hold onto as the vehicle bounced around rocky mountain peaks whilst 4wdriving.

Rockhampton is a town of more than 85000 people and is well laid out. It’s a pretty place and I look forward to exploring it in the next week. We continued on to Yeppoon which was only 36 km away. I was glad to book into our caravan park and get organized with setting up every thing. I look forward to a relaxing few weeks here at the Capricorn coast.