Rockie....

18 & 19 October 2007 - Flying kangaroo, beef steaks , spa and work.....

For the first time in my working life, I have the opportunity to travel!!! (suaku hor?)

Me and my boss went to Rockhampton, "a district that sits astride Queensland's largest and most picturesque river, the Fitzroy. The magnificent Berserker Ranges and Mt Arher provide an imposing backdrop to this city that has a population of 60,000 with a district population of 100,000.

Rockhampton, the Capital of Central Queensland, is located on the Tropic of Capricorn and is the gateway to the Capricorn Coast and Great Keppel Island, the gemfields and farmstays.

Founded in 1853, Rockhampton has many examples of colonial architecture including Customs House, old Post Office, business houses and homes. Rockhampton was once a busy port as many ships came up the Fitzroy River with their goods and passengers. Rockie is also the Beef Capital of Australia (with about 2.5 million cattle - more than 1/2 of SG's human population!!!), and there are six bull statutes situated throughout Rockhampton representing the main breeds of the area.

Why were we up at Rockie? To coordinate and manage the Annual General Meeting of The Rock Building Society (ROK). We left the office on Thursday, 18 Oct 2007 at 1.30pm towards Brisbane Domestic Airport. When we arrive, we checked in on the self help terminals and proceeded through the security scans.

Things didn't go exactly as planned.

1) My boarding pass stated we are to proceed to Gate 31 while Kev's stated Gate 29. We thought that was weird but went in search for our gates. We found them to be one of the same gate so we didn't think much of it.

Ghost terminal?

2) There were NOBODY waiting at either of the gates. We thought our two colleagues from Sydney would be waiting there but they were no where in sight. After 5 minutes, my boss went to check with the information counter while I got water for both of us. It was actually boarding at Gate 1 - which was at the other end of the airport!

3) We headed towards Gate 1 but as it was sitting in another wing, we had to exit from the terminal and go through security again. And when we got to Gate 1, there were people but no sight still of our SYD colleagues. We assumed that they had taken another flight

4) We looked out to the tarmac and saw propellar planes - Not what we had been expecting. When the gate called, we had to walk to our plane - a 48 seater plane and we were seated at the last couple of rows. When it fired up it's propellars, I can feel it's vibration throughout the whole plane and had doubts of whether it will take off.... (it did, after quite and effort and a very bumpy start)

48 seater bumpy ...

5) After about 1.5 hour, we finally arrived at Rockhampton Airport. We then received a message informing us that our two SYD colleagues were delayed and were taking a later flight arriving around 6pm.

The single runway at Rockie airport. All passengers have to walk to / from the plane to the terminal on the tarmac.

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Inside Rockie airport terminal

6) D, co secretary of ROK picked us up from their airport. We met with the board in their office and was there for more than an hour before D drove me back to my motel - The Coffee House Motel and Kev went with D to fetch Db and T at the airport. When they got there, there were still no sight of Db and T. After some checks, we found that they will only be arriving at 7.30pm.

Since my motel is some distance away from where the rest are staying (Motel 98), we decided to have dinner separately. After a shower, I proceeded down to the cafeteria and ordered soup of the day (Mixed Vege soup) and their signature dish (beef steak).

Dinner was too much and apart from the soup, I wasn't able to finish the main dish so I gave up on ordering dessert. With a very very full stomach, I went back to my room and went for the spa (he he he.....)... It was so relaxing and heavenly....

;p...

Next day, I checked out and caught a cab to the meeting venue at Travelodge. When I got there, T looked at me and asked me seriously "Hey Rach, do you know what's a squab?". I said it's either a quail or a pigeon and they were amazed that I knew. They were having dinner last night and saw that on the menu. Kev and Db thought it was a spelling mistake and they must have meant squid. After checking with the waiter, they found that it's actually baby pigeon who have yet to leave the nest! And from here on, "squab" became a private joke amongst the 4 of us. (Till this day, we still tease each other with squabs....)

The meeting didn't go as well as we had expected but we managed it and when it concluded around 11.00am we promptly packed and hopped into a Maxi Taxi back to Rockie airport. Fortunately for us, Db had managed to get M to change us all onto earlier flights otherwise Kev, Db and T had to wait till 3 and do the "milk run" (Rockhampton - Gladstone - Brisbane) while I had to wait till 5pm to board a direct flight back to BNE on Virgin Blue.

90 seater smoother ride home....

Kev didn't have a good night's rest and was working till 11.30pm the night before and was awake by 4.30am the next day. He was so tired he got confused with the time and seriously thought that we would miss our flight. He thought that it was 12.15pm when it was only 11.15am while we were waiting for a cab. And he actually asked Db if the plane will stop by in Brisbane for them to make a connecting flight back to SYD. This cracked Db up and she asked if Kev will just put on a parachute and jump out of the plane over BNE, or have a troupe of "squabbron" pick him up and send him back home?

The "squab-ron"....

We arrive back in BNE in slightly over an hour. After saying goodbye to T and Db and collecting our baggage, we headed home....

It was a fairly rushed trip and we didn't have much time to explore Rockie. And I didn't dare explore it on my own either coz there were hardly any cars on the road and absolutely NOBODY on the road by 8pm.

Rockie is still like a kampung and most buildings doesn't go higher than 2 levels. There were only a handful that went past 5 levels and they were rare and few in between.

It's still a little backward and doesn't have high tech garbage collecting trucks. They still use the old open top truck and rely on manual labour to haul the garbage up.

But I sure wouldn't mind going up again, just this time I'd like a companion who will be able to explore Rockie with me and see what else it had to offer....