Baga!

The road north from Emu Park led us through the beachside locations of Kinka, Causeway Lake, Mulambin, Kemp Beach, Rosslyn Bay, Lammermoor, Cooee Bay and finally Yeppoon, all much larger than when I was last there, but still full of happy memories. Like the time I stood on a buried anchor tag on Great Keppel and couldn't walk for a week. 

A highlight was the "house" at Kinka Beach in the shape of a whale.  I thought it must have escaped from Hervey Bay (see "A Whale of a Day" blog post from 2016) but looked it up on the Australia's Big Things list and discovered it is all that remains of Coral Life Marine Park.  It is now used for storage by the house next door, and is described as "possibly the only big thing smaller than the original".  I wasn't the only person photographing it.

The beautiful beaches were beckoning, but we had work to do.  The Salvos op shop location in Yeppoon turned out to be the office, and the second shop on our list had disappeared. We finally struck gold at Vinnies, which is huge and wonderful, even if some things are overpriced, like the beautiful Namco triple saucepan set for which they wanted $50.  I would have bought them for $20.  They are still haunting my dreams weeks later.  I photographed the girls being photobombed by a yellow bin, and then we asked directions to the Salvos.

It turned out to be the shop we liked least on the trip.  The dressing rooms were shut, but the clothes were all $2 to compensate.  They had a staff member at the door assigned to spray your hands and give you COVID instructions, and the inside was rather gloomy.  It just had a bad vibe.  I don't think anyone bought anything.

Jo was being very strict about our timing for the day, because she wanted to visit a new oppy in Biloela that closes at 3pm, so now it was back to Rocky.  On the way, we passed one of those distinctive Capricornia volcanic plugs, Which was so memorable that I couldn't remember its name.  I looked it up: Baga.  That name meant nothing to me, as I was sure I knew it as something else.  The reason for the name change became clear: it used to be Mt Jim Crow!

In Rocky the traffic was heavy and Jan wanted another couple of photos of 31 North Street, so we decided to skip the other oppies there and keep moving.  We managed to get a second look at the new "high road" south of the city, this time from the low side. It must have cost a bomb.  My research tells me they are planning a ring road around Rocky. That will probably cost an even bigger bomb.