Hello from the Capricorn Coast of Queensland, where the sky is blue, the temperature is in the mid 20s, there are no looming public transport strikes, and every day is a holiday (well at least for a few more days). I flew into Rockhampton yesterday, where Mum and Dad collected me. We’re at Kinka Beach, which is a pretty, tiny seaside resort about 15 kms south of Yeppoon. We’re in the caravan park – me in a shiny new cabin, and Mum and Dad in their trusty van – they’re on their way home from their winter migration.

Yesterday afternoon was just about catching up, settling in, and acclimatising to the sunshine. Aaaahhhh …. you can feel all those tensed up muscles relax instantly just from being warm.

The landscape is not tropical, or covered in sugar cane, like the far north. There are mangroves, and a lot of dry scrub and long grass. Another feature are the numerous craggy volcanic plugs, the remnants of millions of years of erosion, which are a dramatic addition to the scenery.

This morning we set off caving. The Capricorn Caves are a few kms north of Rocky. Discovered around the turn of the century (the previous one, not the 20-21^st turn) by the sons of a local landowner, as they followed a brush turkey down a hole, the caves have offered guided tours ever since. Being dry caves, there is no constant drip of limestone, so there aren’t a lot of formations. Despite that, the tour is really interesting, culminating in the Cathedral, a large chamber with perfect acoustics. Weddings in here are very popular. We climbed down narrow stairs, squeezed through clefts and a zig-zag tunnel, and crossed swing bridges – and we weren’t even on the Adventure tour! Back in the good old days, we would have waded through waist high bat poo to reach the Cathedral – lucky for us, they dug this out and sold it for fertiliser many years ago. The most incredible feature were the tree roots that were suspended from the surface, stretching down dozens of feet right through the caves, searching for water.

After a picnic lunch, we headed into town. I’ve never been here before so have nothing to compare with, but I’m sure with the rate of development, it’s probably very different from even 10 years ago, and much bigger than I realised. “Old” Rocky still features many ancient “Queenslander” houses, with the paint peeling. “New” Rocky has the usual affliction of ubiquitous big box retail stores and supermarkets.

We headed for the Botanical Gardens, a cool green oasis featuring some amazing trees, a desert garden full of prickly spiky things, and a tranquil Japanese garden. There was also a small zoo which is being redeveloped with enclosures that are more natural for the animals. There was a cute cuddly wombat called Donna, a koala named Caramello, and some much snappier critters.

We’d spent several hours on our feet so it was nice to get back to base. Rockhampton is the self proclaimed beef capital of Australia (there are statues of cows in the streets), so it seemed only fitting to have a nice rump steak for dinner before an early night. All that fresh air and sunshine is exhausting!