Yesterday on the first day of this new year 2009, there was a fatal car crash just up the road from our place. The only person in the car, an 82 year old man, was killed when his car swerved off the road (somewhere between Browns Lane and Cooberrie Park) and travelled around 90 metres before smashing into a tree. Just after the time of the crash around 2:30pm, we saw two ambulances racing up the road in that direction.
Well if you haven’t noticed YeppoonInfo.com now has a brand new design & website, which I think is much better than the old one. The new design has a much more “traditional” look and feel, compared to the very ordinary blog style design that the previous website had. Before I go any further, please have a look at the screenshot below and visit the site!
This new site includes a totally different structure, for example along the top just above the random header image display (which showcases panoramas around the Yeppoon region), there is a places menu listing all the localities in this area. Above that menu are the resource links, which currently include the Yeppoon Events, Yeppoon Photo Panoramas and Yeppoon Accommodation pages. Later on as soon as I can code it, I hope to add a Yeppoon News page which people can subscribe to via email or RSS.
If you have any other suggestions of what to add or what I can change, please don’t hesitate to contact me!
Recently my family and I did a drive up to the Byfield National Park area, which is located around Five Rocks, Stockyard Point, and Nine Mile Beach. Access is 4WD only, so we took along our new Nissan Patrol. This was the first time we’d ever done sand driving, or proper four wheel driving for that matter, so it was exciting to be testing out the 4WD.
Byfield National Park covers an area of around 15,000 hectares or 37,000 acres, so it’s a huge, fairly unspoilt area. Notable features include the huge sand dunes in the Nine Mile Beach area. For more information about camping spots and facilities in the area, please visit this page on the EPA’s website.
Most people visit the Five Rocks area to four wheel drive, fish, camp or explore. Some do a combination of all these things. One good piece of advice for anyone wishing to go and visit this area is to bring someone in separate vehicle along, as there are plenty of potential for getting bogged in soft sand and the like. Anyway, below are some photos of our day trip up there:
Our convoy on the road to Five Rocks, as you can see the whole track there is sand.
Driving down the hill to the Stockyard Point Lookout. From here you can look north to the Five Rocks Headland or south over Nine Miles Beach.
Our parked cars at the Stockyard Point lookout.
The view to the Five Rocks Headland from Stockyard Point.
Looking down to the start of Nine Mile Beach, jutting up to Stockyard Point.
I took this picture from the top of a small hill, overlooking the end of Nine Mile Beach. It was a beautiful place for swimming.
The Orange Bowl - or so it called by locals. This gigantic pile of orange sand is a great place to rev up the ‘ol 4WD and spin some wheels, but be wary of burning out your motor.
Every year since 1990, the Singapore Armed Forces have been holding training exercises at Shoalwater Bay, a few hours north of Yeppoon. For the last couple of years, the Singapore Armed Forces Music & Drama company (which travels around the world performing for the Singapore Armed Forces), has been coming to Yeppoon & Rockhampton to thank the residents here for their hospitality.
Last night we went to one of the performances in the Yeppoon Town Hall. Entry to the performance was totally free, unlike last year when it was $2. First off, they had a band of string musicians from 7:30PM to 8PM, when the main show started. The main show had lots of dancing, with a live band providing music for some of the acts. The show finished at 9:30PM, so in all there was 2 hours of performing.
There was a mixture of music and performances, ranging from traditional Singaporean music to 1970’s stuff.
One of my favourite acts was this man who was able to copy instruments like the drums and didgeridoo using only his voice. This sport is called beatboxing. In the video I’ve included below, you’ll be amazed at what he can do. There was no accompanying music however.
I managed to take lots of video of the event (1.2GB in all), so I’ve embedded some Youtube videos and photos below. The photos aren’t too good because of the low light. Remember that you can watch the high quality version of the videos by going to the YeppoonInfo Youtube account and selecting the video, then clicking the “high quality” link just underneath it. There are also some videos on that account that I haven’t embedded on this post.
Photo #1 from one of the traditional dances
Photo #2 from one of the traditional dances
Photo #3 from one of the traditional dances
The beatboxing guy who can imitate the didgeridoo and drums with his voice. No extra music added!
A Singaporean traditional song (I think).
One of the very last performances by the Music & Drama company. Costumes were from a ’70s themed part.
Cassowary chicks in captivity are a very rare occurence. Cooberrie Park (official website), has two such chicks that are being hand raised, because the parents are too great a risk to trust with feeding and caring. This afternoon my sisters and I drove there with some rats (the rats are for breeding and their babies will be used to feed the snakes on display) to sell.
The owner then said that he had something very special to show us, something that most people will never see in their lifetimes. He then took us to a cage with two young Cassowary chicks inside. More information on Cassowarys can be found at the Queensland Government’s Enviromental Protection Agency website, as well as Wikipedia.
Cooberrie Park currently has more protected Cassowarys in captivity than any other park or zoo (besides Australia Zoo, which has 5 as well) in Australia. They currently have 3 adults and 2 chicks.
Below are the photos. Sorry for the blurry black lines on the pictures, they’re a result of the wire getting in the way.
The top part of the Cassowary Chick. The head looks a bit like a chook’s head but the obdy shape and colour is totally different.
A full view of the Cassowary. Notice the very distintive black markings running along the body.
