After a great nights sleep, I awoke with a sunny disposition that belied the dreary grey clouds that still hovered ominously across the morning sky. After our day from hell yesterday, if you thought we were going to be turning for home, tail between our legs, you had better think again. We’re in this for the long haul, and despite my most morose mood yesterday, we’re having a ball. In fact we had a great laugh as I recited yesterday’s blog to Bec over breakfast this morning. I have to admit, I do have a tendency to occasionally embellish things a little.

So with our batteries recharged, we were ready to and rearing to go, although there was not much on the agenda for the day. About the only task I did have to accomplish was to organise an oil change for ‘The Beast’. Apart from that, there was nothing other than checking out what Rockhampton has to offer.

Before heading out though, we tidied the van, making sure any foodstuffs were placed up high and well out of reach of the dogs. We are going to trial leaving them behind, in the van whilst we go off and do our stuff today. We haven’t been able to leave them before, as it is generally against the rules at caravan parks to leave them unattended. No such problem here though. I was somewhat anxious that they would fret, and leave us with a nice mess to deal with upon our return. Bec has the utmost of faith in them however, so we will see how it goes. A quick run around the yard in the mud, to wear them out a little, and we closed the door, crossed our fingers and hoped for the best as we headed into town.

It’s about a 20 minute drive into town, where our first stop was at the authorized Cummins agent in town. Being that ‘The Beast’ is powered by a Cummins truck engine, I figured they would be my best bet, and they would have been, had they not been completely booked out for the entire week already. They helpfully provided me with a few more numbers for other diesel mechanics around, but they were all also booked solid. I hadn’t reckoned that it would be an issue to get ‘The Beast’ serviced, but it ended up taking us almost 2 hours to finally work our way through our options, before we checked in at the local Chrysler/Jeep dealer. Thankfully, they can fit me in on Friday morning, although because they’ve never dealt with a Ram before, can’t give me a quote on the service until they know what they need to do. Sounds expensive already.

One thing that we have noticed as we’ve been going about our business today is that no one seems to be in a hurry round here. Actually, the general pace is downright sluggish, and it makes you realise just how busy and fast paced we are back at home. Not being used to it, we found it to be exasperating, yet to the locals, it’s just a way of life and no one seems to mind.

Crossing the Fitzroy River.

We were then finally able to take a drive about town. Rockhampton is a huge place, quite spread out and bisected by the Fitzroy River. It is billed as the beef capital of Australia, the evidence of the industry apparent at every turn. Dotted around are full sized cattle sculptures, whilst one of the entertainment draw cards as advised by the information centre is the cattle sale yards on the outskirts of town. One of the busiest in Australia, they hold cattle auctions daily. Along with beef, the cattle are used for sport, with a strong cowboy spirit perceptible and plenty of stores dealing in cowboy accouterments that I could otherwise only dream of.

Some of the local architecture.

The main business area consists of a main street lined with shops, surrounded in each direction, for a couple of blocks, by government agencies, businesses and other services. Some of the architecture is beautiful, with old buildings magnificently restored to the prior glory abundant throughout the town. A quick walk up and down the main street failed to provide us with much food for thought, although we did finally remember to call in at the post office to send a couple of packages home. In what could I guess be called the outer suburbs, there are various other retail areas, including a shopping centre that is sizeable, even by city standards, and a homemaker centre. We stopped only briefly at the former for an exploratory expedition.

Back at the caravan, having been gone for the better part of 5 hours, I was fully expecting to open the caravan door to be greeted by two dogs resplendent in the remains of our bedding. It was a pleasant shock to find that both of them had probably done little more than lay on the bed and sleep all day. They sure were excited to see us back however, and came out for an enjoyable waltz about the yard. Bethany was especially thankful to expend her pent up energy, bolting about from one end of the yard to the other at full speed, with me barely keeping up behind her, the leash at full stretch.

With the babies exercised, Bec went off to the bathroom, only to come screaming back out seconds later. It would seem that as far as Bec is concerned, the bathroom is no place for a frog to call home, and it needed immediate dispatching. I carefully re-located it to a suitably damp corner of the garden, with Bec standing a distance away, screwing her face up and making all sorts of funny guttural noises at the whole procedure. If that wasn’t bad enough for her, you should have seen the reaction only a short time later, when walking through some long grass, she got a small twig stuck to the back of her ankle. Admittedly, yes, it did bear a passing resemblance to a slug or a leech, but the squeals of fear were ear piercing, while the hopping around and mad swatting at it were comedic.

The rain, having held off for the most part while we were out today, decided to make an unwelcome reappearance not too much later, again restricting us to the confines of the van, although by this stage, I believe we were all quite contented to cook up a quick dinner, before relaxing hopefully in front of the tele. I say hopefully, because we have managed to tune in only a couple of stations, and they both seem to be dependent on fine weather to get a strong enough signal to provide us with a watchable picture. Them’s the joys eschewing civilisation, in favour of camping in the middle of no where. Oh, and one of the other joys, is that our Internet access is painfully slow out here, so I must apologise, as I won’t be updating our pics on Flickr for the time being. Not unless I remember to take the computer into town one day.

Until next time, stay safe, have fun and don’t forget to write.