Boy am I glad to be back

Aaahh, finally back from my little camping trip in Rockhampton. Its been a long and ardous month for me, so you probably can't imagine just how happy I am now to be on Singapore soil, to be seated comfortably at home now. (Cue the national day song: My Home).

Long story, long story. Suffice to say, Rockhampton is your average country side. I observed that the city layout in general has no difference between say, some bigger towns in Malaysia. But then again, further observation will tell you that probably Singapore is the one of the few, if not the only, countries that plan their city structure way ahead of time. Well, Rockhampton's layout is such that there's a main road going through the city, with shophouses to both sides of the road. Then there's the smaller roads that branch out to the sides, where it leads to the private property houses. But I gotta say that the distances involved are much larger. Take your small town in Malaysia, and upscale it by like 5 times, and you will appreciate the fact if you gotta make any journey on foot, you better be mentally prepared, or cry. The whole city(more like a big town), is what you would say, the countryside. Nothing like the urban modern-ness of the big cities like Sydney, or Melbourne.

When I first touched down and stepped out of the plane, I was immediately greeted by the cool or some would even say frigid weather of the nights. Their night sky is almost always cloudless, with stars scattered across. I could even make out the Milky Way. Weather there is desert-like; for those who studied some geography would recall that desert climates are such that it is blisteringly hot during the day and fricking cold at night. Partially, the absolute lack of cloud cover is to blame.

Camping in the forest there.. well, its different compared to camping in the forests of Singapore. Trees there are tall, with only foliage on the topmost of layer. The trees there look like aliens, stark against the landscape, dry and withered. Some trees are blackened, and this is because of the frequency with which forest fires occur for no apparent reason. Grasses there are tall, dry and brittle. Quite unlike the annoying carpet grass in Singapore. There, if you coulld really lie down in the grass without like dirtying yourself or anything. And its comfortable lying down the grass. The sand is dry and powdery, not the mud that appears in here. I strongly recommend that night movement around in the forest is not encouraged at all. First of all, its really really pitch black at night. You stick out of fingers, and you cant see them. The sky is completely dark by 6.30 pm. Secondly, if you wander around without adequate clothing, you are going to shiver like nobody's business. You would probably lose heat rapidly to the air around you.

The whole month of wandering around in the forest with nothing but some biscuits to survive on for 10 days.. Hmm, I'm not going to speak of it here. Its been a harrowing experience for some parts, reproducing it on the blog here would sound too much like griping on my part.

So lets see some pictures of the last 2 days of rest and relax around in Rockhampton!

There's where we touched down on the first day. Maybe its not very visible from this photo, but as you can see, its nothing like the reception at Changi Airport. This one's a small airport..


The pic on the right is photo at their heritage center. A place about their olden days, essentially. Farmhouse style, and self sufficient. Nothing very interesting here in my opinion. But that's just me.

We're still at the heritage center, and I came across this old style phone booth..Being people whom are so used to the modern telephone, we cant help being amused by this one. We really got to try it out.. There's my friends being serious about it..







Seems like we can never divest ourselves entirely from armored vehicles.. Even here while we are trying to relax, preferably away from tracked vehicles.. having spent a month with them .. -_-






While being there, I noticed quite of few of these pretty trees around the town.. They appear to curiously lack the plentitude of leaves, but makes up from it with a bountiful of indigo coloured flowers. Quite a sight to see.
And this is a pic of the town.. Looks like any other town to me.. This town is split in north and south parts by a river.. The Fritzroy river.
Here's a pic of the right side of the bridge as I was heading south.

And this one is the left side, you can see recreational sailing/boating(?) here..













The bridge itself..




A pic of my buddy here.. while we were waiting for our flight, spent that time lugging his bag around in a simply colossal mall of only 1 storey(guess why), for 6 hours.. Guess that it, cause I did not bring any real camera out, but simply used my camera phone.

Perhaps more photos to come.. when my friend uploads some of them..

Shrugs.. one down, more to go..