Like a Rollingstone, Day 74 – Emu Park & Causeway Lake

Day 74 Friday, 22/7/2016, Yeppoon, hot

We had intended to visit the Gracemere Cattle Saleyards today as they are the largest in Australia but all sales have been halted because of the ‘wet’. The Camp Draft has also been postponed until August. Will we ever get to see a real rodeo? I know one thing, we’re really good at just missing them.

In Emu Park there is an ANZAC commemorative walk along the cliff top. There are gardens of rosemary and etched sandstone, silhouettes of the troops marching in France and the most delicate image of the Gallipoli landing on clear glass that uses the Coral Sea behind it as its own backdrop. An irony being that the Coral Sea was the site of a major battle in the Second World War. The Singing Ship vibrates in the breeze and commemorates arrival of Captain Cook.

We stop at Causeway Lake and I chat to fishermen who are working the ebb tide. They show me how to use a bait pump and they are sucking Nippers out of the mud. Nippers look like a white yabbie half the size of your little finger but with one giant pink claw as long as their body. Soldier crabs skitter across the sand nervously even though no one other than me is interested in them. The water from the lake gushes out to sea at a fair speed and the fish are biting. Those nippers must taste good.

At dusk we buy a wood fired garlic prawn and anchovy pizza from the lady in the mobile woodfired pizza van at Mulambin beach and eat it beside Causeway Lake as the sky turns orange. The little fish and chip shop is jumping and campers are having happy hour on the lakeshore, all is right with the world here and the pizza is delicious.