A town of numbers

On the way to the town of 1770, I got on the Internet to find out a bit more about the town and its name.  1770 is a village built on the site of the second landing by James Cook in May 1770. It was the first time Cook had landed in the state now known as Queensland. Originally known as Round Hill — after the creek it sits on — the name was changed in 1970 to commemorate the bicentennial of Cook's visit. 1770 is known as the Birthplace of Queensland.

We arrived at one of the busiest little campgrounds we have been to. After speaking to the receptionist, we found out that the campground is completely full nearly every night of the year. In fact one night we were there was the first time they hadn’t been booked out for over 6 months! What a little gold mine that business would be!

The campground itself was nothing special. We were packed in quite tightly and the amenities were average. However the campground was right on a beautiful little beach which was on a beautiful little bay that opened out to a magnificent surf beach.

The campground was next to the bushes on the right

The weather wasn’t very kind to us while we were there, but at least we got to try out our new patio heater while we sat around having a few drinks with Mark and Amanda.

Between the rain, we tried a bit of fishing – unsuccessfully - and drove around town a bit to see the sights. We had a nice BBQ dinner at the local park but had to make a mad-dash back to camp when a huge storm headed our way.

A walk out to the point

A secluded little beach below the lookout

The big storm came rolling in

the playground next to the campground

some of the local wildlife

Friday was Dan and my wedding anniversary and although Amanda had offered to babysit the kids, we decided that we wanted to celebrate with everyone. We booked a table at a lovely little restaurant that we could walk to along the boardwalk from the campground. We were really looking forward to a fancy dinner, a few drinks and a nice walk home to celebrate our anniversary. Even the rain was going to clear up for the evening.

We were planning on leaving on Saturday when the weather was going to be dryer, but our plans quickly changed! Friday morning it was pouring with rain and I was keeping an eye on the weather so I could get things dry before packing up. The boys were doing schoolwork outside when Will got distracted and decided to have a closer look at our new heater. He knew he wasn’t allowed to touch it but he wanted to see how it worked. He was kneeling on the bench seat stretching to get a closer look, when he lost his balance and fell forward. He landed on his finger and bent it backwards.

Every parent knows that there is a difference in the way their child can cry. Most of the time (especially with our accident-prone Will) we know he has hurt himself but it’s nothing a cuddle and a bandaid won’t fix. However I heard him cry that morning and I knew he had done some real damage. I thought he must have dislocated his finger. He was crying and telling me that his finger was broken. I kept telling him it wasn’t broken and it will be ok once we got some ice on it. About 10 minutes later when he was still in obvious pain, I sent Sam down to get Amanda (It’s very handy travelling with a nurse!)

 Amanda came running back trough the rain and took a look at this finger. As we were watching it, his finger and knuckle began to swell, bruise and was sitting at a strange angle. Amanda said she thought was dislocated but because Will was in so much pain, she didn’t want to try to put it back in.

Will's hand started turning blue and was really swollen!
Time to seek medical advise.

So off we went to the local Medical Centre. We were lucky to get straight in to see a doctor, but he told us that he thought Will’s finger was broken (I was hearing a lot of “I told you so!” from Will) and we needed to get x-rays done. The only problem was that the nearest hospital was either Bundaberg (where we had just been) or Gladstone (where we were going to tomorrow).

So we made the phone call to Dan that all anniversary plans were cancelled and we had to pack up and move to Gladstone to get Will to hospital.

We returned to camp to find all the kids in Mark and Amanda’s annex, and Mark and Amanda were in the rain helping Dan pack up. We couldn’t have asked for better friends at that moment. They were wonderful and really helped us out when we needed them. We got packed up in record time and headed off with all our belongings packed up and soaking wet. I stopped in at the general store and stocked up on lollies and chocolate to try to take Will’s mind off his sore finger.

We dropped the caravan off at a rest stop just out of Gladstone and asked our new neighbours to keep an eye on it for us, then we headed in to find the hospital. I took Will in to the waiting room and Dan took the other two boys off to try to find a dry playground indoors somewhere.

We dropped the van off and headed to the hospital

The view from the rest stop outside Gladstone

We got to the hospital just after the X-ray department was closed for the weekend, but the triage nurse managed to catch someone just as they were heading out the door. She still had her handbag on her shoulder when she took us in to get the X-rays done.

It was obvious from the X-rays that Will had fractured the bone in his middle finger all along the bottom. Unfortunately it was very close to the end of the bone and very close to the growth plate that they didn’t know the best way to treat it. After waiting around for a few hours while they got a second opinion from the Orthopaedic Surgeon, Will’s finger was splinted and we were sent home.

Will had chipped the bone off the bottom middle finger

Even KFC for dinner couldn't cheer him up!

We ended up celebrating our anniversary at a rundown KFC in a rundown part of Gladstone. Not ideal, but these things happen! Just to rub salt into our wounds, Amanda sent us photos of them at the lovely little restaurant back in 1770, having a toast to us for our anniversary dinner!!!

We drove about 25ks down the road to Calliope River. You are allowed to camp on either the North or South side of the river. We chose the North side because it is much higher and with the amount of rain that had fallen of late, (and the amount still due to fall) we didn’t want to risk being flooded out.

Our little piece of paradise

We picked a spot with a good view and made sure there was enough room for Mark and Amanda in front of us.

Looking at our caravans from the other side of the river

A very popular spot for campers



YIKES!!! This sign sent shivers up my spine! Probably the first of many,

but scary all the same.



 

Calliope is a very cute little town. The river-side campground is next to the Historic Village which is home to a weekly Sunday market. The kids managed to spend all their pocket money and all of Sam’s birthday money on toys and games from the market.  I bought some delicious fresh fruit and veg and we spoilt ourselves with some tasty cakes and slices.

One very foggy morning. Yes, there is a river down there somewhere.

The rain cleared enough (just) for us to build a campfire. It was pretty tough to start the fire with only wet wood but we managed. We made a special deal about our last night (who knows for how long) with Mark and Amanda and the kids. We sat around toasting marshmallows over the campfire and had a nice chat.



The dads relaxing with a brew (or two)



While we were putting the kids into bed we left Amanda to look after the fire. She was left alone with a couple of bottles of wine and we found her in a very different state to when we left her! Needless to say, she was extremely entertaining for the rest of the night!

We are now going our separate ways. Mark and Amanda are continuing north to meet up with family and then to try to find work for a few months, whilst we are now heading west and going inland to explore a bit of the Outback. We will then be turning around and heading south towards home for a couple of months. We have some family commitments and it’s not a bad thing to be heading south for the summer months. We are not ready to turn around yet and feel like Queensland has so much more to offer us but we must do what we must do...

The rain, and the outside light brought in lots of bugs,
followed by lots of these cute little frogs!