Roadtrip – Byfield National Park to Rockhampton

We woke up and I said you know what, maybe we should change plans and go and spend the day in Rockhampton. So we did. Nothing wrong with Ferns Hideaway but we didn’t really feel the need to explore the National Park around it.

We packed up. As we drove into Rockhampton we saw Kershaw Gardens on the left and spent about 40 mins there walking the trails. It felt so good to be road tripping and pulling over and looking at things when we felt like it.

After dropping our van off at the caravan park, we decided to check out the riverside area and heritage walk. As we were about to leave I tried to open the door and broke it. I should say completely broke it, as it was already partly broken when we bought the van. That meant we couldn’t open the door.

We were so lucky it happened in a major town. There was an outdoor place 5 minutes away that had a door handle replacement. Who would have thought? Chris said that place saved our marriage.

Anyhow… The learning is. Take basic tools and someone who knows how to use them. Chris has had to use them a few times. And maybe fix broken door handles before a big holiday.

In the afternoon we did the Heritage Walking Tour which is in the river precinct. It went past the Rockhampton Museum of Art that had free entry so we had a quick look. There was a Luke Roberts exhibition on display. Quite thought provoking – we are not very smart art people so we were trying to work out the meaning of his photographs and artwork.

The heritage buildings were beautiful. The people at the Information Centre told us there is an audio tour you can download and listen to that explains the history of the buildings. We didn’t but other people were listening to it we noticed. The council has done a really nice job landscaping along the Fitzroy River.

We made the last stop the pub. Had a drink in the beautiful window.

Came back to the caravan park, had a bit of a relax and headed to Mount Archer National Park for sunset. It’s about a 25 minutes drive from Rockhampton central. There is a boardwalk popular for viewing the sunset from.

We should have probably gone a bit earlier because the sun was a bit low and there were other walks that would have been good to do. It wasn’t well signposted to the boardwalk so allow a bit of time to find it if you are going at sunset.

We stayed at Southside Holiday Village. We were happy with it. It is between a road a railway so there is some noise but it didn’t bother us. We quite liked hearing the train. The toilets were clean and renovated. There were heaps of cabins. The camping area was a bit like stepping back in time with the power hookup and the style of the ensuite sites but we thought that gave it character. It was very secure with high fences and boom gates which made me wonder if there was a need for that…