Like a Rolling Stone

28 July 2013


We spent yesterday afternoon and night at Rollingstone Beach, not far from the Rollingstone Hotel, Rollingstone Street, and the teeny tiny blink-and-it's-gone town of Rollingstone, Queensland, Australia.  And we stayed at Rollingstone Beach Holiday Park.

You'd think, with all those Rollingstone locations, I'd have found a souvenir.  With the name Rollingstone on it.  

Nope - my choices were a stubby beer coozie (you know, those neoprene beer or cup cooler things), a small sticker, or a cap.  Oh, and a postcard of a kookaburra, not looking at the camera.  A kookaburra's back.

Ah well, I took some photos and that'll have to be it.  

We were expecting a campground full of aging rock'n'rollers, with beards and beads and, like, peace, man.  

But no, we found the usual collection of what Aussies call "grey nomads" - the retirees who head north with their various caravans and campers, and 
 enjoy the warm weather when southern Australia is cold and wet all winter.

So we pretended we weren't going-grey-nomads and that we were the rock'n'rollers, and walked on the beach.  There wasn't much else to do - it's a beautiful campground, and we were maybe 50 ft (just over 18 meters) from the beach, so we heard the roaring waves all night.  As well as the still-wild wind, which provided the rocking to our rolling.

Anyway - I always include a beach description for my dad and my coastal/marine science friends - the beach had golden sand, a little bit coarse, with a fairly steep slope.  It had a few levels from the various tides.  And the usual sandbars just offshore, which would appear and disappear with the tides.  The most interesting - off to the west side of the beach (well, the direction the sun set) was a shingle beach, or maybe a shingle bar - just at the water's edge, and looking almost like a manmade jetty.  It seemed to be comprised of river rocks, all nicely eroded to smooth ovoid shapes - probably the rolling stones from the Rollingstone Creek, and the reason all the places are named such.  The shingle or cobble area continued on for quite a ways, with occasional trees growing out of the sand.  Weird, huh?

There were also some shells, which made for great close up photos with the new camera's macro lens.


And, that was about it for Rollingstone.  

We drove north to the town of Ingham, which seemed like a nice little town.  Most shops and cafés were closed, since it's Sunday here.  But we found a place with friendly pokies - and the Cleopatra machine gave me the minor jackpot for an early birthday present.  It was a five digit jackpot, if you include the cents, LOL!  Anyway, I of course sat at the machine screaming, bouncing up and down, and hugging the machine - with the other pokie players laughing - except Richard was screaming too!  We certainly liven up a place, I must say!

We're settled for the evening in Cardwell, at another nice campground, again by the beach.  Too far to hear the waves, or maybe it's just a quiet tide at the moment.  We're thinking we'll head to Mission Beach tomorrow for a couple of days, maybe do another sail or snorkel trip, weather permitting.  The crazy winds have died down a bit, but today is a bit drizzly so we haven't gone for our beach walk yet.  I'm sure we will.

Our time in Australia is winding down - and while it has been a wonderful six months with all kinds of sights, fun, and adventure - we're both looking forward to the tropical islands of the South Pacific.

A little more like home.