Great Keppel Island

There was much anticipation for our trip to Great Keppel Island.  My childhood memories were making the expectations high.  It was only a short trip from Rosslyn Bay to Great Keppel and as soon as we got there, we dinghied to shore to check it out.

 

You may remember Great Keppel Island used to have an advertising campaign “Get Wrecked on Great Keppel”… well it’s kind of appropriate now too I guess as it is a wreck!  It was really sad to see.

 

Don’t get me wrong, the beaches are beautiful and the water a gorgeous clear azure blue but the resort, due to development approval not being forthcoming, has closed down and been abandoned.   It’s just like everybody went home for the day and never returned.  The rooms still have furniture in them, there are still mowers, tractors and planes just been left to rust and yet the people still come.

 

Every day the Freedom Cat shows up with a couple of hundred passengers.  There is a pub and some camp grounds but that’s about it really.  I guess it’s a good thing for us as it wasn’t crowded and was a real paradise.

 

We met a great couple, Keith and Pauline from Tan T’ien, and they took us around the other side of the island.  We went ashore and found a souvenir tree.  That’s were visiting sailors leave a momento of some sort on the tree marking their visit.

 

Whist walking around we found a barbecue area set up by passers by.  It had table and chairs, bench, pots and pans, vinegar (for stings) and a request that you remove all of your rubbish.  We even found a chair that once belonged to a friend of ours.

 

During our trip back to the other side of the island, a steering issue reared its ugly head and made sure Michael didn’t have a completely care-free trip to Great Keppel.

 

The steering arm is under the helm and cannot be reached.  We called over Keith, he’s a shipwright, and he helped Michael cut a hole through the floor to reattach the steering arm.  10 hours and 4 sweaty armpits later a case of beer was coming Keith’s way.

 

 

Keith and Pauline talked us into going to Rockhampton to stock up.  We’d been in Great Keppel for 2 weeks we needed to bathe, get groceries and refill the water tanks.

 

Tomorrow we’ll be heading for Rocky!