One of these is Rockhampton, or Rocky to the locals. Rocky is home to the Australian beef industry and you can't go there without trying steak..it's the law!!! As a result everything is cow-related and some efforts are well, bull-s**t.
The other claims to fame are that it's on the Tropic of Capricorn (with a monument that we couldn't find!!) and unofficial capital of the Capricorn Coast, and that Rod Laver, the famous Australian tennis player was born here.
There's not much in Rocky for the average tourist to do and didn't help that we'd arrived at 12.20am, got up at 4am to watch a stunning England performance that was load of moo, that it was a Sunday, and that the next day was a public holiday to celebrate the Queen's birthday.
According to the signposts however there's many things to do here but for some reason couldn't find the Heritage Village, Zoo or Botannic Gardens.
There is a nice river, the Fitzroy River, that you need to cross to get into the CBD where the information centre is set and where the historic places of Rocky are set.
The Criterion Hotel is the first impressive building that you come across and as with Bundaberg has a distinct American Wild West feel to the place.
You can just imagine these doors being replaced with saloon doors!
Many buildings in Rocky still identify with the cattle industry including the cleverly named 'Cattle House' where the early administration was contained. The main road on this side of Rocky follows the river path and has many large buildings from bygone times.
This is the old Customs House but is now home to the Visitor Information Centre, where after approx 30mins realised that we had been following an Historic Building Walk...doh! The building's design was lovely and really had a presence on the road that you could only imagine what visitors in the past would have thought. It also houses a cafe that would have meant a remortgage!!
Just so you know what we both look like now here's a quick pic :) with Mount Archer in the background.
The town hall is a classic example of dodgy architecture that was added to during the Victorian era in a similar style to utility (water and electric stations) back home in the UK. It was nice to see the flags of the area flying though :)
Just before our steak (that we'd also forgotten to take a photo of!) we visited St Paul's Cathedral, a very different building to the famous London landmark but equally as charming. The vicar was on hand to invite us nosy tourists in and was very interested in our trip, wishing us safe travels. Cathedrals in Australia we've noticed are not of the same stature as those in England maybe due to the size of population or size of parish.
One of the few tourist destinations that Rocky offers is the historic Archer Park Tram and Steam Train Museum. Whilst we didn't go inside (again very pricey for not much) we did get a picture outside and just peered inside. Apparently there are steam train rides if you're there on the right time and right day!
Our day was almost at an end (about 4ish) but managed a quick peer inside a closing Rockhampton Art Gallery. The chap on the desk gave us a super-quick explanation as to what we could expect so we split up. Amber looked at the Japanese artwork and artefacts whilst I found a Colour Exhibition that showed the use of colour, contrast, tone, shadow etc. It was a shame we couldn't have stayed longer but we had a date with an Emu!
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