Happy Census Day!

The chaos continues: I am so glad I am not involved other than as a respondent. I've just completed our form at Rocky (ie Rockhampton) and it was OK, but a few strange bits of design.

When we got up it was a very dewy morning and the humidity was evident in these clouds.

 What about the rat you ask?  It had cleaned out one of the traps without firing it.  Tonight I will try to set them very sensitively, and donate some more Ratsak to the cause.

The coconuts look a bit threatening.

The caravan park was a tad basic but having a resident flock of PWDs  is a bonus.

When we left I called in to thank them for allowing Tammie (despite signs to the contrary).  The two ladies on deck were very pleased that I took the time to do so.  Given their evident low occupancy rate they need to get every punter they can.

It was still humid and quite cool over night , so lots of dew on the camper.  Also attractive clouds over the mountains a bit South of Mackay.

The drive was strange as it seemed to take forever to get anywhere.  For the first 80 or so kms this was because of continual small settlements and/or roadworks.  After that the speed limit went up to 110 but it still seemed slow.  At one point a B-double came past us and had to cut in a bit, but no biggie.  We then followed it for about the next 100kms.  Still time went slowly - was it because we were going through sclerophyll woodland?

Eventually we got to Rockhampton.  It was huge.  Lots of flashing lights resolved to cops (1) escorting this massive load (2) - no idea what it was.

After dropping the camper off we went back to Rockie to look round the Kershaw Gardens.  Generally good, with this palm clad pool the highlight.

They have solved the problem of how many trees by painting a number on them!

On the way back out to the camp we took a look at Shanessy Park.  Another huge aggregation of Plumed Whistling Ducks (this time I guessed 2000).

Back at the camp a moggie was evident.  Physical warfare didn't happen, but neither looked likely to back down until I intervened on Tammy's side.

I like this night shot of Frances preparing an excellent tea.

Here is the entrance to the camp at night.

I'd gone to the gate to photograph the passing trucks, but they were too fast.  They were also continual through the night, as were the coal trains (ie trains carrying coal, not carrying miners as per Hugh Masakela's song) across the highway.  Each train took ~70 seconds to pass so my guess is they were about 1km long.  Despite this continual racket we slept quite well.

Update: in daylight a few of the trains were gereal freight and others passenger carriers.

• Bird of the day: Little Lorikeet pulls down the prize as most everything more interesting has already been used.  Nope: Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo got the nod.    Flock is (again) Plumed Whistling Duck at Shanessy Park
• Vegetation of the day:   Palms at Kershaw Gardens
• Memorable moment:  It was actually many moments following a truck for about 60km!
• Comment of the day: "Someone just refused."  The poor Census Collector at our campground.  She is damn lucky in the circumstances that anyone has cooperated.
• Pie of the day: Non existent.
• Troppo moment of the day. Misinterpreting the signs to the Rockhampton VIC  and doing an exploration as a result.  This meets both definitions of troppo: bloody stupid and becoming angry!

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