Rockhampton

 Day 1 – Going to Cowboy Land

After some bacon & egg roll’s (Glenn) and Banana & Greek yogurt (Shell) we began to pack whilst our neighbours Vero & Joe came over for another chat and gave us some recommendations for campsites along our route.

We then set out for another two hour drive to get us to Rockhampton, affectionately known as Rocky by the locals and is reputed to be the beef and cowboy capital of Australia.  The main attraction for us going there was that we had read about a bar/hotel in our guide that had a Rodeo (Including Bull-Riding) ring around the back of it.

A couple of hour later and we arrived in Rockhampton with the ominous clouds gathering, we had been informed at the last campsite that there was a forecast for 100mm of rain on its way.  With that in mind when we checked in we asked if they had bathroom en-suite’s at the site so we were happy when they said they had one available for us.

After checking in we then drove to the local shopping area to stock up on supplies yet again (small fridge), before heading back to our campsite to set up for the day. 

Once settled we were both feeling a bit weird (Light headed – not the beer for once!) so we decided to have a quiet day/night and do a big chilli cook up, some for today an a batch in the fridge for another day.

Later in the evening we had a dinner before watching a bit of TV before going to bed. And the rain started to fall!

Day 2 – Here comes the rain!!

Getting up and making use of our En-Suite bathroom we then cooked up a nice big English breakfast just before the rain started to kick in again.

The rain just kept coming and coming so we just sat in the van and did a lot of blogging and reading waiting for it to stop.

However the rain did not stop all day and just to emphasise the point we had some regular visits throughout the day by some ducks.  As it was now getting late we decided that we would not go to the Rodeo tonight due to the miserable weather and instead go tomorrow and spend another day here hoping the rain would clear.

The rain continued into the evening so we just went to the camp shop and bought some snacks and settled down in the van and watched a few episodes of The Soprano’s before turning the lights off for the night.

Day 3 – Rain Rain Go Away!!

Waking up we could still hear the rain hammering down on Muriel’s roof and looking out wasn’t inspiring either as there were now large pools of water all over the camp, much to the pleasure of our resident ducks!  The only saving grace was that we had booked the en-suite which meant we didn’t get soaked doing midnight toilet runs.

At per the previous day this meant we were van bound for the day, once again just doing a lot of blogging (at least this helped us catch up a bit) and reading until the early evening.

We phoned the Rodeo place and found out due to the un-seasonal rain that it had been cancelled for the evening, so as we had been cooped up all day we decided we would just go out for a decent steak meal and booked a restaurant that had been recommended in our guide.

Taking a taxi to the restaurant we arrived and to be honest it was more of a pub (a very big pub) that did food and was famous for its steak.  We had a drink or two and then went to our table and sat down waiting to be served, it transpired that you had to queue up at the counter and order yourselves, so after 20 minutes I finally placed our order (hit the queue in rush hour!).

Our steak’s then promptly arrived, a big one (Glenn) and a medium one (Shell) but to be honest we were not that impressed, we have had far better in Argentina, Spain and actually Shell’s local Beefeater!!

Anyway after finishing our meal and finishing the rest of our wine we noticed that there was a live band setting up so we thought we would check them out.The band were OK but it was the floor show that kept us entertained as there was some nutty Aussie guy throwing the most outrageous shapes on the dance floor (Jersey reader’s think Mad mark!) and was joined occasionally by another guy with odd moves too.

As the evening wore on some guy (who thought he super cool…..Knob!) asked Shell to dance whilst I was sat right next to her and we could feel the atmosphere in the place slightly changing, so we thought it might be best if we headed for the exit before it kicked off.

So we caught a taxi back to our campsite and had a night cap before bed, it was still raining!!