Long Ride - Day 12 - Rockhampton to Hervery Bay (via 1770)

Long Ride day 12 - Rockhampton to Hervey Bay

Waking to bright sunshine day 12 of the Long Ride was looking to be a good one.  It was going to be a long day on the road, but it would be worth it, at the end we were looking forward to a home
cooked meal.

We set off from Rockhampton as early as possible, anything to get away from the monster we found hanging in the tree across the way, one of the biggest spiders I have ever seen.

We road through some of Rockhampton's suburbs and again like so many other cities in Queensland I was taken by how pretty it was.  Every city in Queensland seems like this, that is until we got to Gladstone.

Oh my god, what a poo hole.  The approach to the city from the Bruce Highway takes you right past a dirty great hole in the ground, then an aluminium smelter,  it wasn't the prettiest of sights and the

Monster.  This spider was as big as a mans hand.

smell would take the paint off a battle ship.

The city itself wasn't much better, don't get me wrong it wasn't the worst place on earth, but no matter where you looked there was some sort of mine or smelter.  In fact I think we stopped at the only nice place in the entire city for a quick break, the park and beach, only to find that there was sign saying not to swim - stingers present.  It was also surrounded by factories.  It sort of reminded me of Corio Bay in Geelong.

In complete contrast was the next place we visited and one of the most significant place in Australia.  The town of 1770.

1770 was the place of the second landing on Australian soil by Lieutenent James Cook in 1770.  It

The pub at 1770.

was originally called Round Hill but was renamed Seventeen Seventy in 1970 to commemorate the bicentenary of Cook's landing.

The town now caters mostly for tourists and is one of the prettiest places around.  We had a quick lunch at the pub, I could've sat there for hours, maybe even days, enjoying a beer and watching the world go by.

It was a pity we had to leave but nevertheless we did, and set off for Bundeberg, a place I really wanted to visit for obvious reasons. 

The marker errected in the 1920's to honour
Captain Cook.

The road to here was great, plenty of twists and surrounded by beautiful forests, that is until we reached the outskirts of Bundeberg where the forests were replaced with cane fields.  Here we go again I thought.

Unfortunately we were a little behind schedule so we didn't have time to stop.  It was quite a disappointment as I really wanted to visit the Bundy distillery, oh well a home cooked meal wasn't far away so we pressed on.

On arrival in Hervey Bay, again I was taken aback by how big it was.  We arrived at our destination and were greeted very warmly with a beautiful meal and beds to stay in.  It was a great difference to hotels and caravan parks.  We had the meal, enjoyed a few drinks and laughs before heading to bed.

Thank you Damon; Kat; and little Georgia for your friendly hospitality.  It was really appreciated.

A few more donations have nbow taken the total raised to above $12,800.

We rode for a total of 493 kilometres taking the overall ride to 4,646 kilometres.  Tomorrow we should click over 5,000 kilometres.