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.