A VISIT DOWN TO YEPPOON AND THEN TO THE KERSHAW GARDENS.

 After being house bound with the kids for a couple of days we decided to take a drive to Yeppoon for lunch at the beach.

Steve has had a bit of sinus since we arrived home and both of us were feeling pretty lethargic so it took us a lot longer to clean up and unpack to what it usually does...

We both were missing the sea air so thought we would take the kids down to the beach for a fish and chips lunch on the beach.  The sea air would be good for us as well.

They were pretty excited to go as they both could remember the water park there and were pretty keen to have a play in it.  

Steve found a table for us and whilst I went and ordered lunch he watched the kids play in the water...

After our lunch the kids continued to play whilst I went for a bit of walk along the beachfront at Yeppoon.  I had read about some new street art that had been completed down here so thought I would take the opportunity whilst we were down there to check it all out...

The flags were all flying at half mast today due to our country paying its respect to the Queen for the lost of her much loved Husband, Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh....

One of the new massive murals on the side of a building on the Esplanade in Yeppoon..

Meanwhile, the kids were still enjoying playing in the water even as I returned.  They really do love it down here and when staying with us, it is always one of the first places they love to visit.

Jumping from step to step...

Max has really enjoying playing with Pete's old Lego since he has been staying with us.  Pirate Lego was all the go when our Pete was young and Max has had a ball with it.  Hence, the conversations about Pirate ships and shipwrecks etc so before coming home, we thought we would take the children to Wreck Point where they have a memorial to the ship the "Selina"which was wrecked many years ago just off the coast at this point...

The kids enjoyed seeing it which bought about more questions about shipwrecks etc... we were able to tell the children a little about the history of the shipwrecked "Selina".

The historic event of the shipwrecked "Selina" is what gave Wreck Point it's name.  'Selina', was a transport schooner which washed up on the shores of the coast cliff on it's maiden  journey from Brisbane in 1847.  With disaster hitting early on it's journey, the Selina lost its crew and wandered for thousands of nautical miles in a huge circle near the Victorian Coast before heading towards New Zealand.

The ship was finally wrecked on the Capricorn Coast, which in turn dubbed the area Wreck Point.

The sculpture shows the partial skeleton of a schooner which evokes the wrecked, isolated ship featuring the ribs of the hull, the split and twisted vessel, and the tilted ship shape,.  The principal material they used for this art work was a material called corten which is actually like rusted steel and would be sympathetic to the "old ruin" aspect of the sculpture and weathered hardwood was also used which equally fits the historic nature of the work.  All up the project cost $350,000 of which $148,000 was funded under the Tourism Demand Drivers Infrastructure Programme which was funded by the Australian Government.

We ended our afternoon back in Rockhampton with a visit to the new playground at the Kershaw Gardens.  This is one of the kids most favourite places to visit when they come to visit us in Rockhampton...

The Kershaw Gardens has been described as Rockhampton’s big back yard for all people to enjoy.  These magnificent gardens stretch one kilometre parallel to the Bruce Highway and provide an attractive, peaceful setting within North Rockhampton. There are lots of great walking tracks and play areas for kids and the magnificent waterfall area provides some great photo opportunities.  By far though the most popular area is the children's playground....  There are always heaps of families here enjoying the playground and also picnicing at the many picnic areas that are surround the playground...

One of the really niffty things we found in the sand digging area were old dinosaur bones that were hidden for the children to dig up.  Max and Willow loves this and spent some digging them up to finding this big dinosaur skelton.  Max in particular was very excited to find it and was convinced that they were real...

We spent a good hour here and the kids didn't really want to go home...

I truly love seeing the kids enjoy these great parks.   They do grow up so quickly and in the blink of an eye they will have outgrown this wonderful places.  I love to see their energy as they run from one thing to another, truly being children with excitement and wonder showing on their faces...

I love that they love to come on holidays with us and love to do and plan special days...  I love that we have been blessed with these amazing grandchildren and my only regret is that our other two gorgeous grandchildren are on the other side of the world at the moment and can't share these precious times with us...