I won’t bore you with a blow by blow description of the road south from Mackay other than to say it came as quite a shock to see the magnitude of coal exports from the mines in the Bowen basin which is about 170kms inland through the port facilities at Hay Point, Dalrymple Bay and around Gladstone. In fact I Iearnt yesterday that Gladstone is set to become the World’s largest coal export terminal within a year!

The scale of these operations, the massive the industrial infrastructure required to support it and the dozens of ships waiting to load and transport our coal to the furnaces of Asian stands in stark contrast to the beauty of the natural environment surrounding them, the mountains and the islands of the barrier reef.

I understand these operations create plenty of jobs and make a significant contribution to our economy but do wonder how long we can keep doing this and know there is a better way to satisfy the energy needs of the planet which would be more beneficial to our economy and way less stressful on the environment. Sooner or later we will realise that nuclear power is the way forward, and the fact that Australia has the largest known uranium reserves in the World should make us the powerhouse of the nuclear age.

I realise a lot of people might disagree with me, and this doesn’t have much to do with lighthouses but there are parallels. With every lighthouse I visit I see how the evolution of technology has improved outcomes and wonder why our current governments are behaving like luddites. Nuclear (or as I like to say New-Clear has to be the way to go! The technology is proven and safe, if we’re smart and not just mine but process our uranium it can be massively beneficial to our economy and have a positive impact on global sustainability. It is, after all, the energy that powers the universe!

Enough said!

Yeppoon was 350km down the road and that was just the beginning of it, North Reef Lighthouse was a further 120km offshore! I always expected North Reef to be a challenge but thought it might be worth hanging around in Yeppoon for a few days exploring options for getting out there. As it turned out Yep-Poon was not for me, the harbour was ok and reminded me of a mini Gibraltar but the rest seemed like a low rent version of the Gold Coast in the ’70’s. It doesn’t say much for a place when the two most memorable things about it were a funky letterbox and a beached whale house! I decided to keep driving!

As evening fell I discovered a place I’d never heard of and despite it’s name, Emu Park, it was the best I place I’d seen since I left Nirvana. I decided to stay rather than push on to Rockhampton as I’d planned. This turned out to be a good decision, not because of anything particularly wonderful about Emu Park but more to do with how unattractive Rockhampton turned out to be.

The first thing I encountered was a huge abattoir on the outskirts of town and even though I’m a dedicated carnivor I couldn’t help feeling sorry for all the cattle in the yards waiting to be turned into sausages.

And another thing that annoyed me was that I thought there’d be some recognition of crossing the Tropic of Capricorn, which is second only to the equator in terms of global significance. Captain Cook and other ancient mariners recognised the significance of it’s geometry but apparently not the powers that be in Rockhampton because there was no indication of where this line was and it’s probably the most significant thing about this place, other than Rod Laver and he got out as soon as he could!

Based on my desire to see Rockhampton in my rear vision mirror as quickly as possible I decided to put North Reef Lighthouse in the too hard basket and move on. Near enough was good enough!

If Rockhampton was bad (and it was), Gladstone is worse, without doubt one of the least attractive places I been to, it seems like it’s the engine room of Queensland, hard core industrial and everyone seemed to be wearing high-vis and smoking. Not only that but I discovered that the Cape Capricorn lighthouse was 50km away, inaccessible by road and I wasn’t going to waste my time trying to find another way of getting there, I was too intent of getting out the other side of Gladstone.

So far my trip south from Mackay had been highly unproductive and very boring. I guess this is the reality of road tripping, you have to take the bad with the good, but skipping two lighthouses in one day did feel a bit like defeat!

As I headed on to Agnes Water and 1770 (which incidentally is the only town in the World who’s name is actually a number) I was worried. Having had two strikes with my lighthouses I was concerned that the next one on my list, Bustard Head also looked very remoted and difficult to get to but thankfully I was in for a change of fortune.

Firstly Agnes Water was small had a bit of a surf vibe to it, it’s actually the east coasts most mortherly surf beach although there wasn’t any when I was but it does have a baby Noosa feel to it.

The second bit of good news was that my old friend Captain Cook had been to 1770 before me, hence the name, and the place had left quit a favourable impression on him as it did on me. Even better I discovered there was a company offering LARC (army duck) rides to Bustard Head and guided tours of the lighthouse! I also found out I could do a day trip out to Lady Elliot island flying out of Bundaberg.

Things were looking up after a couple of decidedly down days!

P.S. What(s) a LARC:

If you’re interested LARC is an abbreviation for the military description Light Amphibious Resupply Cargo vessel, but I prefer the more descriptive laymans name we gave them back in the day – Army Ducks. They were designed and built in the US specifically to serve in the Vietnam war and only 907 of them were ever built at a cost of over USD million each. Of that number over 500 were scuttled of the coast of Vietnam at the end of the war to prevent them from falling into enemy hands.

Of the 400 odd that survived five are owned by the operator at 1770 and he’s in the process of buying another three. If you’re in the market and can find one they sell for about $ 45k each these days, but spare parts are an issue. They have a top speed on land of 26 kph and in water 8 knots (13 kph), they have a 300hp cummins diesel engine, can carry 2,271 litres of fuel and and get about 3 litres / km! They can carry 100 tons of cargo, can handle surf up to 3m, were self righting and the windscreen was made of bullet proof glass.

A relic from a bygone era!

To complete the compare and contrast theme the mode of transport out to Lady Elliot Island was a brand new Cessna Caravan which could apparently fly itself as Anna the pilot seemed to rarely touch the controls (it seems self flying planes are way ahead of self driving cars)! Once there my faith in the beauty of the Great Barrier Reef was restored by the crystal clear waters and abundant sea life surrounding the island. Initially I was disappointed that I’d only be spending about six hours on the island but given the proliferation of nesting, squarking and shitting sea birds on the island it felt a bit like a Hitchcock horror movie and smelt even worse. After six hours I was ready to leave!