9th - 13th November 2020
We left Airlie Beach and travelled on the Bruce Highway down to Cape Hillsborough where we had heard that the kangaroos and wallabies come on to the beach at dawn. Good old Google maps led us up the garden path first taking us down a dirt road and a supposedly short cut to Cape Hillsborough, what it failed to tell us was that, that road was not suitable for trucks and caravans. Lucky for us the road had been recently graded so was in pretty good condition. We have learnt a very good lesson though – If there is no signage saying this way to wherever we are going don’t turn down it until you specifically see the name of the place you are looking for !!!
Cape Hillsborough is a very pretty nature reserve with walks out to Wedge Island on low tide and through the surrounding rainforest and only about 50km from McKay. We stayed at the Cape Hillsborough Nature Tourist Park for a night. There is plenty of kangaroos lazing around the campground, so if you have never seen one up close and personal its a great place to go. We spent the afternoon walking but unfortunately the day wasn’t great and we had to escape a few showers of rain and the very windy conditions. The next morning we were told to be on the beach by 4:50am to see the kangaroos and wallabies. When we wandered down there were at least a dozen sitting on the beach near the water. We thought it was a completely natural thing until we saw a park ranger wandering down with a bucket of food for them. Even so it was worth seeing the kangaroos hopping along the beach through the seawater – not something you see every day. As we were up nice and early we hit the road to Yeppoon by 8am to travel the 400km.
We decided to stay at the Discovery Coolwaters, which is about 15km south of Yeppoon and about 7km north of Emu Park. Such a beautiful part of the country with long golden beaches and beautiful aqua waters overlooking Great Keppel Island and dozens of other little islands along the coast. We have spent the week exploring the area. We also spent a day in Rockhampton having a look around the city.
We were lucky enough to have some lovely neighbours who we got talking to and who own a boat and love to get out and snorkel and they offered to give us a ride out to Great Keppel Island while they went off snorkelling. We spent the day walking around the beautiful island. The beaches are just amazing and the waters are so crystal clear, we had a fabulous day walking and swimming. There is a bar/bistro on the island so we were able to grab some lunch before heading back to Yeppoon. Unfortunately the winds had got pretty strong by the time we started heading back to Yeppoon so it was pretty rough going, but as was mentioned – its just like a ride at SeaWorld – LOL It was a fun day and we really appreciated the boat ride over – FAB boat !!
We are going to spend another 5 days here at Yeppoon so we can explore The Caves & Byfield National Park.
