We're in the Tropics!

Currently in Rockhampton, where the Tropic of Capricorn passes through the town.  From what we've seen so far, it's a sizeable town with very helpful tourist info staff, nice parks including Botanic Gardens and a zoo.  We're staying at Riverside caravan park, quite nice, handy to town etc.  Might be a bit noisy as there's a busy bridge nearby but we'll manage.  Last night we had a constant stream of roadtrains but that didn't worry us too much.

That free camp at Duarangi turned out to be very popular, at least 12 vans/motorhomes there last night.  The area's quite roomy so there could have been quite a few more without any problems. Chris chatted to a guy, John, who's heading for Sapphire for 3 months, he's promised to lend us some gear and show us the ropes of fossicking when we get there later.

We were up early and got away just after 7, as we were still hooked up so had less to do.  There was a constant stream of traffic, mostly trucks, heading in the opposite direction all the way to Rocky.  Did I mention that the railway line from Emerald (at least) to Rocky is electrified?  Apparently the coal mines paid for the electrification.  What a good idea, since they are the ones to use it- a steady stream of long, long trains passes in both directions.  We measured one, which was about 2 kilometres long- when laden, they have 3 engines in front and 2 in the middle- they have some big hills to cross as well as the weight.  Going back empty, they use only 2 in front and 1 in the middle.

Mining is HUGE here.  It's part of the Bowen Basin, a rich coal area. We've passed a number of wide loads, most of them mining equipment but some farming machinery too.

The land became more hilly as we approached the coast, and we had a few drops of rain, not enough to put the wipers on though.  Rocky itself is not quite on the coast, it's about 30 kilometres to Yeppoon and Emu Park, but the river's salty as far as the weir and the info guy said they catch barramundi, whiting and other fish here, even from the banks right here at the caravan park.

We're having a quiet day at the moment, Chris is catching up on some sleep and we'll go for a drive later.  There's a good lookout nearby, which will help us get orientated.  At the moment I feel as if east should be here, when actually it's there.

PS We've now done in excess of 3,000 kms this trip.