Family time

I guess it was like when my father's older sisters came to visit when we were kids.  Dad was the fourth youngest in his family of 14 and my brother Terry is the second youngest in our family of 12.  I'm the oldest and my sister, Tricia who was travelling with me on my road trip, is fifth.  I always thought my paternal senior aunts were soooo old.  I think of them as sitting sedately in a lounge chair, skillfully balancing a cup of tea on their lap, smiling benignly as we sat around on our best behaviour, thinking we were being judged, praying we wouldn't say or do the wrong thing and shame the family.  They were always beautifully groomed, complete with hat, gloves and stockings.  A touch of rouge and a little lippy.  

I suppose the appearance of old(er) age hasn't changed. Our dress standards may have slipped but I hope my generation of senior aunts are not seen as quite so distant.  I thought I saw something of myself reflected in my brother's 15-year-old younger daughter, an interest of what life must have been like "back in the old days".  A polite smile of respect for a much older relative.  Strange to think that I am that person now.  I'm going to start behaving appropriately very soon - I promise!

Terry and his family have made their home in Gladstone, 550 km north of Brisbane, my eventual destination. Like Townsville, it is reliant on the mining industry and seems to be suffering from the downturn in mining in Australia.  Although the port still looked busy to an outsider. I wonder if it retains its world's fourth largest coal exporting terminal status?  One upon a time it was a grain port, but those days are long gone, although it is still a multi-commodity port and exports coal, alumina, aluminium, cement products, sodium cyanide and ammonium nitrate.

Its also a stepping off point for the south end of the Great Barrier Reef and its islands and reefs. 

I've posted about Gladstone before (here), when I last visited in September, 14.

My brother and his wife make good tour guides.  I was impressed by the East Shores Water Park which wins my prize for the best of the foreshore water parks we had seen.  It seems every major beach town has to have one and Gladstone can be very proud of theirs.

It has numerous public amenities including BBQs, pools with fountains, changing rooms, tables and seats. All nicely landscaped, overlooking the harbour and beside a pleasant walkway.

Tricia flew home to Brisbane from Gladstone so from here on south I was on my own.  Back to my usual mode of slow, solo travel, side roads and many stops for photos.  Thanks, Trish for keeping me on the right side of the road and reminding me of the road rules.  We had some good times!

At roadworks, on the road to Bundaberg

Gladstone

I think of Gladstone as an industrial city but it has a lot more going for it than an excellent harbour, together with many of the services and raw materials needed by industry.  It sits at the south end of the Great Barrier Reef and is gateway to several picturesque islands and reefs, including Heron and Lady Musgrave.  The region is famous for its fishing and crabbing.

 

I think of the region as on the tropical side of sub tropical but, to be more precise, it has a tropical savannah climate.  This classification needs to have an average temperature over 18C degrees (64.4) for the whole year and a prominent dry season where the driest months have less than sixty millimetres (2.4 inches) of rain.  Gladstone has an average maximum temperature around 27C (80.6) degrees, with an average of 880mm (34.6 inches) of rain a year.  Sounds ideal to me!

 

When Captain Cook first came along in 1770 there were a few aboriginal tribes in the area.  The first white settlers didn't arrive until 1847 and they appear to have been about 200 convicts.  Free settlers arrived in 1854.

 

I first visited in 1966 when it had a meatworks, a relatively small port trade  and a population of around 6,000.  My new husband and I called in there on our honeymoon to visit a former workmate of mine and I was offered a job at the alumina bauxite refinery that was being built at the time.  There was no job for my husband otherwise our life may have been quite different.  Anyway, that refinery was the catalyst for modern industrial growth which has seen the district population grow five-fold since then. 

The industrial progress of the Gladstone area represents one of Australia's development success stories. Today, the area is certainly the land of the giants, with the world's largest alumina plant, the State's largest power station, the State's busiest port and Australia's largest aluminium smelter, the world's fourth largest coal exporting terminal.

I've heard Gladstone referred to as the grain port of Central Queensland but grain doesn't seem to compare with the major exports of coal, alumina, aluminium, cement products, Sodium Cyanide and Ammonium Nitrate. I had to dig a bit to find out about the calcite that my brother pointed out to me.  I had never heard of it yet it is one of the most common minerals on earth.  Shows how little I know!  It's a high quality limestone which, when crushed, is a pure white product.  It did look very pretty sitting beside the water.  It is stockpiled at Point Auckland (shades of home) for final shipment to Geelong where it is used as a filler in plastics, paper glossing and tooth paste.  You won't catch me swallowing the tooth paste again!  I still don't know where it is mined.