We wanted to go snorkelling at Port Douglas, so decided to make a road trip of it so we could visit family in Rockhampton on the way up. Our first stop was to visit Eungella National Park. I visited here as a kid, but didn’t remember much other than seeing a platypus at dusk and dad getting a leech. Broken River was a nice walk, and there was a cafe at the top but not much to see in the middle of the day.

Holy Holy - Faces Such an awesome riff. Ocean Alley - Confidence This is the warm tunas pick for #1 spot, and well deserved. Also considered voting for Knees or Baby Come Back (which was easily the best Like A Version for the year). Childish Gambino - This is America Rachael is dissapointed I’ve voting for this, but it’s a great song and and even better video clip.

On our last day we set straight out to the end of the walking track to Big Bend. When you are not doing the side tracks it doesn’t actually take that long 11km and took 2 hours although is still a massive distance and so we were pretty tired by the time we got to the end for a break. The actual walk itself was great, with lots of different creek crossings and scenery.

The actual hikes are all a single path that follows the creek, with a bunch of side paths. It’s recommend to go to the end first but as we were going with Rachael’s dad Mark, we did them in the order we came across them and aimed to do the main 4 in the lower gorge. The first side track is for Moss Garden. The water seeps through the sandstone gorge over thousands of years and then hits the basalt layer where it is forced outwards.

I’d always wanted to go to Carnarvon Gorge when I lived in Rocky, but never quite got there because it’s a fair way inland. We worked out though that it’s actually not that much further (2.5hrs or so) from Toowoomba. It really is in the middle of nowhere though, the closest fuel (and shops) are at Injune and Rolleston. On the drive in you pass through Bandana Station which had a bunch of cattle on the road, but we also saw a few Bustards and Emu’s.

The Food and Wine Festival was great as always. Katherine was visiting from London, and Geoff & Carla also came up. I didn’t think the theme at Laurel Bank was as good as previous years, but still impressive. I actually thought Queen’s Park had better flowers this year. There was a new event called the Night Garden, which was okay but probably not worth the admission price (I ended up winning free tickets from work).

We were up in Rocky again (for the 4th time this year), this time for my cousin Kate’s wedding. Making the most of our time there, we tried to do more sightseeing. Firstly, we went and saw the new lookout at Mt Archer. It had been nice and warm in Rocky compared to Toowoomba, but we went up pretty early in the morning and up the top there was a bitterly cold breeze like we get in Tbah.

We decided to drive home a different way from Brisbane and come back through Mt Glorious (D’Aguilar National Park). It was a much more scenic drive then going through the city and not much longer from Joyner. First we did the Maiala walk to Greene’s Falls. The track to the waterfall was super muddy, but the last bit had a walkway and we even saw a wallaby. We then drove a bit further to campsite that had a lookout towards Wivenhoe.

In 2012 my friend Jan visited from Switzerland and I did a post Sightseeing at Home and I showed him some of the tourist places around town. Rachael’s sister Lauren was visiting after living in the UK for over 2 years, and so I thought I’d do another post on more Rockhampton tourist things we did this year. Capricorn Caves When we were up at Christmas, Rachael wanted to go see the Summer Solstice Tour at the Capricorn Caves.

Votes: Alex Lahey - Every Day’s The Weekend Busby Marou - Best Part of Me Gang Of Youths - Let Me Down Easy HAIM - Want You Back Meg Mac - Ride It Vance Joy - Lay It On Me Milky Chance - Blossom Kingswood - Golden Methyl Ethel - Ubu Timberwolf - Íkaros Almost made it: Vera Blue - Regular Touch Amy Shark - Weekend