Great Keppel Island Cruise - Roadtrip 2013

Our 2013 Roadtrip changed considerably after cutting short our time in Winton. While camped at Emu Park, East of Rockhampton, we decided a Cruise to Great Keppel Island was a great idea. There were quite a few options but after reading reviews on www.tripadvisor.com we booked ourselves with SailCapricornia (www.sailcapricornia.com.au) for a day cruise. The trip included a cruise to the island (max. 25 passengers), lunch, morning and afternoon tea, non-alcoholic drinks, all snorkelling gear plus dinghy transfers to the island if you only wanted to get your feet wet.

After leaving Keppel Marina we commenced our 90 min journey across to Monkey Beach on Great Keppel Island for lunch, snorkelling and some exploring of the island.

Sail Capricornia - Grace II

GoPro Video of the Cruise & Snorkelling

Madi on Grace II

Mummy & Lauren enjoying the cruise

 

GoPro pic Grace II Keppel Cruise

 

TeamBray on Grace II heading to Great Keppel Island

Lauren earning her lunch

Anthony's office on Grace II

Lunch ... BBQ, prawns and salad, yummo!!

 

Lauren at Monkey Beach

Lauren saw a fish

TeamBray on Long Beach

Perfect weather for the beach - Long Beach Keppel Island

Photo bomb on Long Beach Great Keppel Island

Long Beach Great Keppel Island

 

Lauren found a star fish

Keppel Island locals

It's hard not to keep stopping and taking photos of this place

Nathan chilling on Grace II

 

 

Emu Park - Roadtrip 2013

Heading East from Winton we found a small tidy caravan park in Alpha. Was great to have a real shower and relax with an afternoon cool breeze.

The heat in Winton/Longreach had taken its toll with a few important items starting to fail. Listing these items - not all were from the heat.

• Primus stove - gas hose exploded in the heat
• Optima 2nd Battery - died, expanded and got very hot!!
• Tyre pressure gauge - seized up
• 2nd tank isolator tap (plastic) - handle smashed by rocks
• Frying pan - coating came off !!! It was new !! How will we cook Bacon !!

 

As we werent due into Agnes Waters / 1770 for a few days we made some calls to find a place to stay. TeacherMum Googled Emu Park which turned out to be a great spot just 40km East of Rockhamton. Bells Park Caravan Park was nice and quiet with green grassy sites, clean amenities and a very short walk to the beach. The local swimming pool is adjacent to the park if you'd prefer to keep the sand off your feet. A few minute walk to the local IGA for some bread and we were all good for another few days.

 

Beach outside caravan park

 

Lauren and Colin having fun in the sand

 

Great view

 

Boys will be boys

 

The water was so nice.

 

More beach views.

 

Smile for the camera.

 

Nice view Lauren

 

Emu Park signing ship

 

Emu Park singing ship

 

View from the Singing Ship.

 

Relaxing

 

The kids are way down there. Piece and quiet for a few minutes.

I'm a sucker for junk mail. We received a whole bunch of flyers from Reception at the park. Everyone was offering tours or ferry rides to Great Keppel Island. This was something we had to try. After sleeping on the idea we decided to book in a tour with Sail Capricornia on Grace II with Anthony & Vicki. I guess the next Blog post will be all about the cruise !!!

 

Our ride for tomorrow - Grace II

 

 

Winton - Roadtrip 2013

Winton - Outback Festival

TeamBray arrives at Winton

After a great time at Longreach we packed up camp and headed for the town of Winton. Only a few days earlier we realised Winton's population is less than 1000. Ok so we're not going to get a Maccas coffee there.

Winton Showgrounds

We were booked into the show grounds on a powered site for 7 nights. Already running a few days late we still had 5 nights up our sleeve. With temps in excess of 40 deg and experiencing the heat in Longreach we had our doubts about how long we'd stay.

ActionDad was contacted by Spencer from 612ABC Brisbane for a live chat in Winton. 612ABC were one of the sponsors of Winton's Outback festival currently getting under way. The chat was to take place on Thursday 5.10am .... ouch. With 2 of the 3 TeamBray kids sick with a flu I was starting to think the meet up with Spencer might not happen.

 

We arrived in Winton and were crammed into a powered site which just managed to fit the van with the awning out. "We're not gonna last long here", we said to each other.

Our patch of Winton

After setting up we headed into town to see what was happening. We did the tourist thing and visited a few shops and bought some bits and pieces including a small opal. The kids relaxed with a Snow cone while we watched the towns visitors crawl from one Hotel to the next. After braving the heat for a few hours we discovered the local pool and spent the rest of the day submersed in water.

TeamBray kids enjoying Ice Cones in Winton

 

Streets of Winton

Poo in a popular theme at the Outback festival

The end of our day in Winton

Australian Age of Dinosaurs

 

After our brief visit to Winton we headed East and called into the AAOG. The dusty track had some corrugations but nothing too serious. We had to ignore the "unhook your caravan here" sign as it was like waving a Red flag to a bull. As it expected it was nothing more than a steep climb which most 4x4s would tackle with a few tonne behind ... no problem.

Ready for a wash

TeamBray explore Dinosaur country

 

Lucky this guy prefers Gluten

 

 

We did the tour and the show which were quite informative. Wow these guys are committed to their love of dinosaurs. The hours spent with small air tools working away small amounts of rock .... mind boggling.

 

Some serious hours are spent here

Another dedicated volunteer

Lets hope they're right

The land around the Age of Dinosaurs was quite awesome too.

Serious rugged country

 

 

 

 

From here we headed East - fast. That afternoon we rolled into the quiet town of Alpha for a shower and a sleep. We also needed to work out where we head to on the coast as we should have been in Winton for a while longer still.