Gladstone

This last weekend I zipped up to spend the weekend with Roy in Gladstone (or as the Aussies pronounce it "Glad-stun"); you might remember he's been working up there for the past several months. Gladstone is 550 km (344 miles) north of us here in "Brissy" on the coast - a 6 hour drive or 1 hour flight. For a new adventure I took the "Tilt Train", which also took about 6 hours. I was informed by my exasperated taxi driver, it's called the Tilt train because it goes so fast, it "tilts" around the turns. At one time we were speeding along about 155km/hr. (~97 miles/hr). It was a very pleasant, relaxing ride.

Gladstone is a small city with a population of about 30,000; much, much smaller than Brisbane. It owes it existence to it's deep water harbor where very large ships can be loaded with coal for example.

On Sat. on our way to the beach towns of Yeppoon and Emu Park, we drove north past the larger town of Rockhampton or as the locals affectionately call it, "Rocky" - now you don't see a welcome sign like that everyday! That is one big cow!

More wonderful road signs! (but we didn't see any.)

This "Singing Ship" had hollow pipes and when the wind whistled through them, it made the coolest, eeriest sound! Fantastic views too! Those are islands off in the distance.

On Sunday after attending the Gladstone Branch's Sacrament meeting, we drove almost 2 hours South to another beach town -1770, so called because the revered James Cook of the Royal Navy landed there, guess when?

Like most Woodward adventures we did have rain, but lucky for us, it came at night so we enjoyed sunny, kinda warm days. It is wintertime here after all but with daytime temps around 22*C (mid 70's F) it feels great to us.

Roy also found 2 new birds so you know it was a really good weekend.