1770

1770 is a bit like a light-year. It sounds like a date, but is actually a town. A light-year sounds like a time, but is actually a distance.

1770 is one of our favorite spots. Nice walks, a couple of restaurants and a cute friendly feel. A  mix of back-packer tourism and grey nomads.

Back-packers getting thrilled by amphibious bus

 Grey nomads sundowner in the caravan park

 Sir Joseph Banks park

 Mangrove root sunset

Pelicans

Pancake Creek

We motor-sailed down from Graham Creek on Curtis Island through the amazing industrial port of Gladstone.

A lovely day, with calm sea and briefly a beam wind, so we sailed on to Pancake Creek for a few days chilling out. One of our favourite spots on the Queensland coast, partly because it has an all-tide entrance, and is quiet and beautiful.

 Jenny Lind Creek looking south to the town of 1770

 Jenny Lind Creek

Dead trees at Pancake Creek

Keppel Bay to the Narrows

After a busy time for both of us at work and home, we flew up to Nimrod in Rosslyn Bay marina, near Yeppoon. She was in good shape, except for a slow drip leak of freshwater from a dodgy bit of plumbing.

Justin Charlesworth was a great help to us, lending George a car with which to provision, and helping me change down to a smaller jib for the beat south when we leave.

Land-time photos

Between sailing trips, I had some fun with my new Nikon D800.

Here are some photos from the Kokoda Challenge which passes near to where we live in the Gold Coast Hinterland. It had been raining the previous week, and the track was muddy and slippery. It made for some good action shots as people slipped on their bums. Morale and good humour was impressive.

 More photos here: http://tinyurl.com/kokodachallenge

 And a house-warming party near Boonah featured some cute kids and interesting light.

More photos here: http://tinyurl.com/desmond70

Keppel Bay

We went exploring a few places we haven't been before. Rodd's Harbour, and Colosseum Inlet, both lovely and relatively isolated.

Reflections at dawn in Colosseum Inlet

Then a kite run up the outside of Curtis Island to Cape Capricorn, where we met up with another Seawind called Phase 2.

Phase 2 arriving at Cape Capricorn

Phase 2 and Nimrod

Volcanic rocks on Cape Capricorn

The entrance to Yellow Patch at low tide

Osprey

 

White-bellied Sea Eagle

Soldier crab

 Bush Thick-knee

 Echidna

As many will know, mammals come in three different sub-classes, the Placentals (us, cows, dogs, etc), the Marsupials, (kangaroos etc) and the Monotremes (platypuses, and echidnas).

 Rosslyn Bay marina

Gladstone's Dark Satanic Mills

The world is lamenting poor economic conditions, in Europe, the US and the rust belt states of Australia. Not here in Gladstone. This is fluoro-man's town. Huge industries are expanding, new ones are being built, ecosystems are being damaged, and optimism is in the air.

The port here concentrates on exporting carbon to the world, in the form of coal and now LNG. It is the fourth largest coal exporting port in the world, exporting 75 million tons of coal a year. It will soon also export 8.5 million tons of LNG derived from Coal Seam Gas (CSG).

75 million tons of coal get turned into somewhere between 120 and 270 million tons of CO². Ref. 

The LNG exported equates to 35-175 million tons of CO² equivalent. Ref.

Total
CO² coming from Gladstone? 155-445 million tons annually. Because it is exported, it doesn't count as Australia's emission, but is recorded under the countries that use it.

For comparison, Australia's domestic CO² emissions are about 400 million tons annually. Ref.

Carbon dioxide emissions from the Galilee compared to other nations. Ref

Poppy growers in Afghanistan have nothing to do with the world's heroin problem, right?

Boys who used to play with Meccano got jobs here as engineers.

 

 Red-tailed black cockatoo

 Queensland family having a wedding anniversary in their front yard.

1770

1770 is a lovely little harbour, the first spot in Queensland that James Cook landed.

There was a festival in the camp site.

Blues singer

 Guitarist

Man in crowd

 Woman in crowd

 Round Hill Head

 I don't want to come to dinner!

Yum!

Trim in a beach cafe