Rosedale (wikipedia)

is a town in central Queensland, Australia. The town is in the Gladstone Region local government area, 423 kilometres (263 mi) north of the state capital Brisbane and 58 kilometres (36 mi) north west of the regional centre of Bundaberg. At the 2011 census, Rosedale and the surrounding area had a population of 448. Facilities in the town include a pub and a general store. The town also has a P–12 school catering for students from Rosedale, Lowmead, Agnes Water, 1770, Winfield and Yandaran. The town is on the North Coast railway line. In 2004, a north-bound tilt train derailed injuring 120 passengers.

Despite the town being in the Gladstone Region local government area, Rosedale is closer to Bundaberg. There has been some interest in the Rosedale community regarding breaking away from the Gladstone Region.

4^th September, Thursday

We managed to get away from Kinka Beach really early this morning as we had a bit of a longer haul today.  We had to go back through Rockhampton and being early we hit the peak traffic.  A bit slow in the van and everyone was probably cursing us…… never mind, they’ll get over it and if they were late for work they could blame “those bloody grey nomads”. We had to take the Bruce Highway to Rosedale for most of the way and this road is notorious for bad accidents.  You can see why as there is a lot of traffic and a lot of trucks.  For the most part the truck drivers are pretty good but we had one come past us on a double white line and we do have the radio to keep in contact with them.  You are always going to get the cowboys that make the roads dangerous.  We heard another truckie on the radio f’ing and blinding about the car in front doing 95kms, he was going off his rocker.  We saw them coming the other way and there was a little car of front of a road train doing under the speed limit and traffic banked up behind.  The road train was about 4m off his bum and the car wouldn’t pull over……. That too is dangerous. The Bruce Highway has much signage about travelling tired and in one spot they have a sign saying “To stay alert, play trivia games”,  then a little way down the road there is another sign with a trivia question,  then you travel some more and they give you the answer and tell you to play some more trivia.  Another sign said “Passenger, how fatigued is your driver?”.  Quite clever really and it does keep you on your toes. We turned off the Bruce Highway onto a country road to get to Rosedale.  The road goes through some very charming small towns.  These little Queensland towns are very pretty and kept very neat.  We were driving along watching the countryside and playing our Slim Dusty CD, you can’t get more Ozzie than this. We arrived in Rosedale at about lunchtime and this is a very small hicktown (which is sort of what we expected).  Not much population and the hotel is about 112 years old, pretty run down and has a spot for our caravan out the back. It boasts meals (no meals), maybe in a forgotten day.  The kitchen and all facilities are there but they only serve grog. There are a few other old caravans on site which I think they use for accomodation but at the moment we are the only ones here.  We are bordering on some land which has a very old long yard (I don’t think that it’s been used for a long time), the other side is an old disused residence.  The ablution block seems to be old dressing rooms etc. as there is a very old disused oval here as well.   The loos and showers are very old but they are clean and there is hot water so we don’t need any stars on where we stay. We love staying in places like this more than structured caravan parks as they have more character and they don’t give a rats for convention, like dogs rules etc.  Love it.  The publican is ‘What you see is what you get type of guy”, great guy. In fact, he looks like Michael Caton (from ‘the castle’) and a bit of the same sort of character. I went to pay for the site and he said, “Sorry love, no eftpos here, if you want money you need to go to the post office, hope you are with the Commonwealth bank and they close in 5 minutes”, this was at 1 o’clock, so I had to hot foot it there which was only a few metres away to draw some cash (Thankfully we bank with the Commonwealth). We have power here but can’t use the water as it’s untreated weir water, not a bother because we filled the caravan tanks up before we left and we have loads of bottled drinking water.  There is no TV either but we have the satellite dish which Ralph is trying to set up at the mo. We are staying here for 3 days because it’s a good base to visit Bundaberg, Seventeen seventy and a few other little places.

 

Seventeen Seventy (wikipedia)

is a village in Queensland, Australia, built on the site of the second landing by James Cook and the crew of HM Bark Endeavour in May 1770 (Cook’s first landing in what is now the state of Queensland). Originally known as Round Hill – after the creek it sits on – the name was changed in 1970 to commemorate the bicentennial of Cook’s visit. The community of Seventeen Seventy hold the re-enactment of this historic landing in May each year as part of the 1770 Festival held in May.

Marker at the town of Seventeen Seventy (QLD) to commemorate the landing of Lieutenant James Cook on 24 May 1770 at that location

Although the town is referred to locally as “1770”, the official name of the town is “Seventeen Seventy”.

Geography

The village is a tourist destination on Queensland’s Discovery Coast. It is situated on a peninsula, with the Coral Sea and Bustard Bay on three sides. Agnes Water is eight kilometres (five miles) to the south. The village itself contains holiday accommodation, restaurants, general store, hotel, picnic areas with free barbeques and a small marina where daily trips depart for Lady Musgrave Island on the Great Barrier Reef, and several trips a week to Bustard Head Light Station.

Seventeen Seventy can be reached by a tarred road from Bundaberg, 120 kilometres (75 mi) to the south, going through Agnes Water. The town sustains a small permanent population; a significant holiday population makes it to the area to take advantage of fishing, Great Barrier Reef trips and other water activities.

The area also has four national parks in the area. These are Deepwater, Eurimbula, Mount Colosseum, and Round Hill. These all offer wilderness camping and hiking.

5^th September, Friday

We had a good nights sleep as it is so quite here at night.  There is only the occasional coal tip trains but they stop running early. There are heaps of rabbits all over the place and they are not shy. We are still the only ones in the caravan park. Todays excursion was to the Historical Port town of Seventeen Seventy.  It is a beautiful little town right on the coast.  It’s very picturesque and has lots of cafes and bars along the seafront. We stopped and had breakfast and had the most beautiful view from the balcony where we sat.  People here are so friendly and prices are amazing.  After breakfast we took Hugo for a swim and he couldn’t wait to get in the water. There are the most beautiful butterflies all over the place and you can spot them in some of my pictures. We checked out the whole town and it is very busy at the mo, peeps everywhere.  Apparently there is a big cycling event here this weekend and town is filling up fast, bicycles as well everywhere. We then had a look at Agnes Water as that is on the way back to Rosedale and it’s another pretty little place.  Captain Cooks first landing on the Endeavour was in seventeen seventy and later Cook Town. Back to camp and I was wrong about the Long yard not been used anymore, I just heard lots of yelling and whistling and there they were being herded in with a motorbike and 2 cattle dogs and Hugo keeps staring at them, I don’t think that he know what he is looking at :-). Tomorrow we will visit Bundaberg.

 

6^th September, Saturday

Today we took a drive into Bundaberg (about 55kms). We stopped first at a place called Burnett Heads. It’s a very pretty little town with a lot of houses on the esplanade but the beach front is mainly rocks and the odd little beach for swimming. After that we took a drive to Bargarra which is a bit town with loads of cafes etc. In fact a lot like Seventeen Seventy. We had a stop just to look but Hugo wasn’t allowed to swim on the beach as there are signs there because the current is very strong. It was a bit windy and chilly to swim anyway. We then drove to Bundaberg and as you can guess it’s just all sugar cane plantations. A few other farms but mainly sugar. You can see the chimneys and smoke from the sugar mill from just about anywhere in Bundaberg. I guess it’s a landmark. The place smells very much of caramel from the mill. We visited the Bundaberg Rum distillery which is right next to the mill. The mill supplies Bundaberg rum with the Molasses to distil the rum. The original house of the founders of the Rum distillery has been moved to this spot and is used for the shop for the Bundy merchandising and bottles of tipple. We bought a bottle of Bundy Rum liquer (chocolate and coffee) and if you are all good we will make you a cocktail or two with this and it would also make a good cheesecake. We promise we will save some for you all to try. We then drove around Bundaberg, did some shopping and a bit more sight seeing. Bundaberg is quite a bit city with quite a substantial river (The Burnett river) running through it. I bought myself a convection oven thingie because I saw another lady in one of the caravan parks doing a roast chook outside of the caravan and me being the gadget queen decided that I had to have one for the van. So folks, guess what’s on the menu for dinner tonight? Tomorrow we will do some local sight seeing as we haven’t really spent too much time looking around here. There is a gorgeous little restaurant across the road called “The tiny teahouse” and they are open for dinner tomorrow night because of the cyclists and fathers day so we will go there for a meal and I don’t need to cook.

8^th September, Sunday

It’s overcast today and looking like rain. We took a drive to Baffle Creek which is mostly along farm road and not sealed. When we got there, we were amazed, not a creek at all but more of a river. Baffle creek goes out to sea so is tidal. The old fella who stays here told us to go and visit and it certainly wasn’t what we expected. Hugo had a tiny swim, he wasn’t really interested as it was a bit chilly and blowy. When we got back to Rosedale there was a bit of a market going on and being the tiny town it is there were only 5 stalls. Funny really but such lovely friendly people. We bought some books and I got some second hand bling. I mentioned before that there is huge cycling event happening and apparently the first stop over leg is here in little old Rosedale, so the town is buzzing. We went to the teahouse for dinner and the meals are out of this world. Forget all the big restaurant stuff, this food was amazing, tasty, portioned and good old country cooking with good old country service and humour. The ladies that run and work here are so lovely and they make you feel right at home. The one lady even remembered my name from yesterday when I went there to ask if they were open and then spent about an hour chatting, as I do (move over Kaz, xxx). Anyways, it was awesome. We were told that the cyclists start leaving from about 6.45 am for the next leg of the journey and that we would be wise to leave before then as they are heading towards Bundaberg (same as us) and the road is narrow, double white lines and no edges to pull over, so we packed up everything before bed to get an early get away. It’s been pouring most of the day so packing up took us a little while. No matter as they so need the rain in these parts, I was even picking grass on our side of the fence to give to the friendly Brumby on the other side of the fence because he couldn’t reach it. I tried to give him some carrots but being a Brumby he wouldn’t have a bar of it (first time I have seen a horse not eat a carrot), poor thing has never been given any kindness, or pats or carrots but he did enjoy the pats I gave him although not the carrots.