A VISIT TO THE CAPRICORN COAST...

 On Sunday I just felt the need to see the beach... to smell the salt air from the ocean... to rejuvinate my soul... The beach is always my happy place... It is a place I go to soothe and feel calm and it has been a good 3-4 months since we had seen the beach at the Capricorn Coast.

I knew that if we didn't go for a drive down this weekend, it would be at least another 5 months before I would get a chance to visit again...

We really didn't have the time to go down, but in the end my wonderful husband decided that a drive down there would do us both the world of good.  

We had lunch with some friends after church at "The Terrace" at shopping Fair, and then Steve had to drop into Bunnings quickly and then we headed for Yeppoon. 

We ended up at the Lagoon on the ocean front at Yeppoon.  It was quite popular with quite a few folk in swimming... There would be no swimming for us today as we didn't have our swimmers with us...

This is such an amazing place, and the best part is that it is absolutely free to go and swim there.  The views are gorgeous and the pool just looks to float out into the sea. 

Whilst Steve went to the bathroom for a visit, I decided to go and shout us an ice cream each.  We usually love magnums , especially those coated in chocolate and almonds, but alas they didn't have any of those today. so we had to make do with the next best thing..

Our view...

Our treat...

After enjoying our ice cream we headed back to the car via the beach.  It looked really lovely at low tide today.  Such a perfect day to be at the beach.  We decided to head home via Emu Park and to actually do the coastal drive to get to Emu Park.

Yeppoon Beachfront...

We headed towards Wreck Point to take a view from the lookout there.  Peter and our grandchildren rang us on our way so it was nice to share the wrecked ship sculpture with Theo, and also show him one of our lovely Aussie beaches..

Shipwreck sculpture at Wreck Point...

Beautiful Capricorn Coast beaches

The coastal drive is really lovely with views of the islands out to sea.  Also the new road around the point is lovely as you almost feel you are driving over the ocean...  This section of the road was destroyed in 2015 when the Cap Coast received a lot of damage when Cyclone Marcia hit...  It took them almost five years to complete this section of road, as all the cliff face had to be reinforced as a lot of it collapsed during the cyclone...  They have done a great job repairing it and the drive round here is very pleasant now...

We made a brief stop at Kemp Beach, to take in the views of the islands off the coast... This really is lovely coastline and I don't think we really appreciated just how beautiful it was until we did our lap of Australia back in 2017.  It gave us a fresh perspective of the beautiful part of the country we live in.  Our coastline along the coast here is as good as any we came across on our travels...

Looking out to the islands from Kemp Beach

The beach here was covered in lots of little shells...  I always find this fascinating.  I often wonder where they have been washed up from, and what little creatures inhabited them..

Enjoying spending time with this special man...

No more stops now until we got to Emu Park.  I wanted to get there before the IGA store closed, as I wanted to pick up a few vegetables for dinner as we were out of at least broccoli.  We then took a drive around to the surf life saving club on the beach front at Emu Park.  There is some new artwork there since we last visited and it was very popular with quite a few folk stopping to take photos of these interesting emus that have now made their permanent residence at the beach here...

Great kids playground at Emu Park

The latest art instillation to make it's home at Emu Park...

The Kerr Park’s signature playground on Emu Park’s beloved foreshore now showcases art and public sculpture thanks to Bendigo Bank’s Community Enterprise Foundation, Livingstone Shire Council and Emu Park Surf Life Saving Club Inc.

These unique emu heads were designed and produced collaboratively by local artist, Bill Gannon, Rockhampton Manufacturing Hub and Penti-M Engineering Australia.

The colourful sculptures complement the playground’s array of play equipment including the Alpha tower, double Flying Fox, all-abilities swing, a Galleon ship, and other imaginative rides.

The almost five million dollar Freshore revitalisation project which was commenced in 2019 is now completed and is a huge drawcard for thousands of visitors and locals, and why wouldn't it be as it is absolutely a gorgeous part of the coast to now be with the beautiful playground, amazing artwork, Anzac memorial and lovely boardwalk to the Singing Ship.

Emu Park main beach.

Enjoying this lovely afternoon with the love of my life..

Our lovely grandson Theodore is really interested in soldier crabs at the moment, so we did go looking to see if we could find any to share with him.  No such luck this time, but we did find quite a few little sand crabs.  The evidence of their being never ceases to amaze me.  The amount of ball rolling they can do in between the high and low tide is positively inspiring and I love seeing the beach covered in these perfectly round little sand balls. 

Amazing how many of these little sand balls are created between the tides

Looking for crabs...

  We have certainly enjoyed our drive down to the coast this afternoon.  I am so glad that we made the time to visit here.  It really does revitalize us.                         

No sure when we will make it down here again as we are off to visit family on the other side of the world soon, and then we have to spend some time down on the coast whilst we get a shed built...