Next stop on the trek North was Miriam Vale, where we lobbed on the Pat and George (parents of some friends from back home). Miriam Vale is South of Gladstone by about 70km.
Our first day in the area gave us an opportunity to explore Seventeen Seventy and Agnes Bay. This proved the value of talking to people who live in the area as we had never heard of them before but pat and George suggested it was the first place we should look over. Seventeen Seventy was the first place in Queensland to have European land, and only the second place in Australia Captain Cook came ashore (after Botany Bay – OF COURSE). No prizes for guessing the year that it happened or why the town is called Seventeen Seventy.
Agnes Waters is located about 6km from Seventeen Seventy and the two towns seem to operate almost as one entity from what we could see. The beaches were pleasant and the fishing is apparently very good.
Like many holiday destinations we have passed through in Queensland however their seems an almost unhealthy abundance of properties on the market. This was something we had already noted when we visited Tambourine Mountain and I ma wondering if Queensland tourism is currently struggling a bit although from the number of caravans, motor homes caper vans and caper trailers we have seen on the road, that part of the market at least seems to still be strong.
The next day we had a guided tour through Benaraby, Gladstone, Boyne Island and Tannum. Pat and George had spent many years living at Boyne Island, Pat worked at Benaraby and George in Gladstone so they well and truly knew there way around.
Looking at the dam that supplies the Gladstone water supply was amazing, especially as George was saying that before the floods it had just 6 months water left in it, with the dam wall being extended in order to improve the catchment volume in the case of extreme weather events. As it turned out the extension had only just been finished when the floods came and the water was still running over when we were there, so water shouldn’t be a problem in Gladstone for a few years again.
Driving around Gladstone was amazing. It was a Saturday and after living in Bunbury for several years we were astounded at the lack of activity on the streets. While people often talk about Bunbury being quiet I reckon if they spent some time in Gladstone Bunbury would feel like it was crazy busy. This didn’t ring right given that Gladstone is a significantly bigger port than Bunbury, but I guess life doesn’t always make sense.
The industrial development also appears to be having a dichotomous effect on the local economy, with rental properties almost completely unavailable and asking huge prices due to development of a major gas hub amongst other developments. Of course this has created the problem that people not on these high resource industry wages are unable to afford to live in the area, an issue also being faced in WA by places like Karratha. The difference for me is that Gladstone is no where near as remote.
While there we went to a local park for lunch where we spent a couple of hours spotting turtles mooching about in the lake. Just as we were about to leave Max also spotted an eel doing its thing along the edge of the lake.
The other event of the day was Harry buying himself a new camera (which in the end we decided we should actually pay for). We had given him our old one and bought a new one for Max. Harry’s however had started taking pictures with a dark pink background and then ripping through batteries in minutes. Initially we had thought it was something he had done to it (he had also managed to reset the language to Chinese), however on searching the web came across a forum that suggested these problems were actually quite common. Needless to say Harry was exceptionally happy following this and has spent a large amount of time since snapping random images.
The camera itself ended up coming from Harvey Norman and if it wasn’t for the fact that Haz was beside himself with excitement there is every chance we would have walked out without a camera. The service may explain the quietness of the town (especially given that the only place we didn’t receive awful service was Domino’s). Again, Bunbury was made to look fantastic in comparison, which may surprise some.
What’s more the manager only seemed to leave an argument with Liz in order to start one with another customer. As the camera was for Harry Liz asked what the cheapest one they carried was and was pointed towards one right where she was standing. She was also looking for a couple of other things and while finding them came across the same camera that Max has for a significantly lower price than the one that was supposed to be the cheapest in the store. After some argy-bargy we finally got what we were actually looking for, with the manager wandering off to another customer while the person on the till apologised for the way he and one of the camera sales people had treated us. As I walked back to find the kids I came across the manager getting stuck into another customer because he wanted to sell floor stock to save having to get a large screen TV out of the warehouse, yet when the customer suggested he was willing to consider this if the price was made to his advantage the manager then got stuck into him. Not quite the customer service standards I was brought up with!
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