Day Five - Rockhampton

I wonder if the snakes at the various tourist attractions look at the signs about them and then decide how much of a bother they're going to be. The signs at the Rockhampton Heritage Village portrayed the snakes as cartoon-like - not like the very real ones over at the Zoo. I heard an interesting bit of news today - and it made sense then why there was a ranger 'posted' at the chimpanzee enclosure at the Zoo yesterday. Last month Gandali was bitten by an eastern brown snake - he'd apparently picked it up thinking it was a toy. He survived and was reunited with Samantha, his surrogate mum, who had rushed to his aid and was reluctant to release him to the keepers after the bite. But she had, and medical intervention had saved the three-year-old chimp - amazing as the venom had taken effect and Gandali was showing all the signs of snake bite.

Since his return to the enclosure, and being reunited with his surrogate mum, the keepers have been trying to keep him 'quiet' and obviously keeping an eye on him and the other chimps and their enclosure to lessen the chances of it happening again.  

We were tourists today - taking a drive out to Mt Morgan to the Arthur Timm's Lookout, and then to see the dam. 

 

At the lookout, Sooz noticed some folk looking at plaques on rocks under a tree - and it turned out they were for two men with the same name - brothers? - and I'm wondering if they were scattered over the side of the hill - the same hill that they used to roll or fall down when they were younger. 

 

Not as easily explained were the flowers taped to a tree at the lookout. It looked like a memorial of some kind, but there was nothing suggesting what it was - I suppose we really don't need to know, just that it is an important place for someone.

 

Sooz decided not to come to tourist activity number two with me this afternoon - the Heritage Village. I was a bit in awe of the detail that has gone into it - mind you, this was my first heritage or historical village so I'm not sure how much work goes into them. The team seem dedicated - I had a chat with Craig, the kind man who drove me down to the Hospital Museum in the work buggy. Craig used to manage a cattle station and decided he needed a 'retirement job' - and he's been at the village for eight years now, and still loves it and wants people to see it at its best. And, no, he hadn't seen any snakes today. Hmmmm, that suggested he had seen them - yesterday. He assured me he hadn't - not that recently anyway, but he has seen them out there - but, he told me, they mostly keep to themselves.

I may have taken too many photographs at the Village - but the facility is quite large and there was lots to look at. The buildings have been donated and refurbished as required - and lots of them have been decked out as they would have been when they were first built. The one thing that was evident was that they were all tiny, tiny, tiny.

 

Rather than posting a lot of photographs here, I've split the photographs into different subject matter areas and posted groups of them to my picture site. Click on the relevant photos when you get there. Mind you, as I mentioned, there are a few.

kazbah33pics.com