Keppel Sands July 2013

July 2^nd, Finished packing up and left Yandaran for Keppel Sands Caravan Park, 40 klms north of Rockhampton. I went the long way, as I didn’t want to travel on any of the backroads suggested by our navigator. We stopped at the Boyne River Rest area for lunch and made a stop at Rockhampton “Bottle O” to buy our casks of red and white wine. It was a long trip, for us, as we encountered dozens of roadworks and we were stopped in a queue at each one. I estimated that they added an hour to our trip. We left Yandarin at 10am and reached our destination at 5pm. I did the minimum set up but after dinner decided to put the annexe walls up. We booked in for 2 weeks.

July 3^rd, I finished unpacking the car and finished pegging down the annexe walls. Val decided to try selling her paintings at the local Markets, so needed Public Liability Insurance. So, after getting some advice from Steven and making a few stressful phone calls, she has 12 months coverage for 10 million dollars, at a cost of $200. After booking a site at the Arcade Markets in Rockhampton for next Sunday, found out that she didn’t need her own Public Liability, as the Arcade carried their own Insurance. We drove into Rockhampton to do our Shopping and I had to put my paperwork into Centrelink. Back home, I opened up my cask of white wine and it was off. When we looked at the use by date, it was Feb. 13, incredible!

July 4^th, I made up some more hanging hooks for Val’s paintings, from a strip of aluminium  flat bar that I had in the tunnel boot, and cleared space in the back of the car, ready for our trip to the Markets. Val got stuck into finishing off more paintings, ready for next Sunday. We decided to take a drive around Town and check out the shops and sights. We started with the boat ramp just down the street from our Caravan Park. First thing we see is the standard warning sign, stating that “crocodiles” may be in these waters. The tide was out, so the boat ramp went down to the sand and the water was about 70 metres away. So, boat launching at this ramp is a high tide operation only. We were surprised to see people standing in the water, fishing and kids running around in the water also. Obviously they weren’t worried about those possible crocs. We carried on and drove through the shops, which consisted of a “Lucky 7” Store, Post Office and a Pub. The drive along the waterfront, which had a little Park with nice grounds and Amenities, and the Beach would have quite scenic if the tide had been in and sunny.

We noticed that there was a mixture of new and very old (not maintained) houses around the area. We went back to the Hotel to see what was on during the week and to check out the Bistro. The menu looked good and we had been told my our Park Manager that the food was very good. They had 2 Poker Machines, so we had a Chardy and a flutter on both machines. We had a bit of a run but didn’t come out in front. We picked up their “What’s On” sheet and headed back to our Van.

July 5^th, After breakfast I pulled all our tent poles out from the Tunnel Boot and started to decide how to put them together to hang Val’s paintings on at the Markets. These Markets are fully under cover, so no need to worry about the weather. I spent all day making corner braces and eventually had a wobbly structure that I thought will have to do for this Sunday. Val was still doing paintings, to add to her stock.

July 7^th, The Alarm went off at 5am and I jumped out of bed, had breakfast, called Val and we left for the Markets at 6am, as planned. Everything was packed up in the car yesterday, how organized were we? Val couldn’t get to sleep (a real worry wart) and ended only getting a couple of hours. We arrived at the Markets around 6.40am and had until 8am to prepare for Business. The set up was in the ground floor of the Car Park at the back of the Arcade. Nearly all the stall holders were already there, setting up and customers were walking around grabbing some early shopping. Our allocated space was in a very good spot, just opposite the doors leading from the Arcade. It took both Val and myself to erect the stand I had put together, very difficult. I will have to come up with something better for next time. The Markets were fairly busy, with the fruit and veggie stalls looking the most popular. Val did a little shopping herself while I minded shop. We had to stay until 12noon, then everybody packed up and went on their way. Unfortunately we didn’t sell any of Val’s paintings but she did have a few people who said they were very good or how clever she was. At one time, a group of very aboriginal people stopped and stared across the passageway at our stall, which had Val a little wary, but eventually moved on without saying anything. We called into Coles and picked up some shopping then found a “Celebrations” Bottle Shop, to get some wine. We were talked into buying some “just out of date” cask wine, which was reduced by $10. The salesman assured us that wine can be 2 months out of date before it goes off.  Val was very tired, so we went straight home and both had a nap. When we woke up, I opened my new cask of OOD white wine, Bugger me, it was off!! We now have 2 casks of “off” white wine! I stayed up till 3pm to watch Andy Murray win the Men’s Final at Wimbledon, what a match.

July 8^th, Our neighbour, out the back of us, left this morning and just before lunch another Van pulled in and it was a couple, Maureen and Phillip, that we met when we stayed at Wooli. It was good to catch up with them again.

July 9^th, I woke up this morning, in the middle of a dream I was having about how I was going to make a more stable rack for next Sundays Markets. After breakfast, I went for a walk around the Park, to see what was lying around that I could use to make stands to hold my tent poles upright. I had a design in mind, made out of timber. At the back of the Park, the Council have an area where the residents dump all their “Green Waste”, which the Council turn into compost. I wandered over there and found a timber frame, with flyscreen stapled to it, lying on top

of a pile of tree branches. I quickly went back a got my hammer and knocked off a few lengths of 3 X 2 and 2 X 1 inch timber. So now I got busy, removed all the nails and staples, cut up my pieces of timber and built a prototype stand. It did the job perfectly, so I went back to get some more pieces of timber from the frame and it was gone! Un-deterred, I went searching around the various piles of timber and found some bits of treated pine flooring and an old wardrobe that gave me the timber I needed to make 3 more stands. After lunch we drove into Rockhampton to get our 2 casks of “out of date” wine exchanged, do some shopping and go to Spotlight for more painting supplies for Val.

July 11^th, Yesterday, I prepared my recycled timber and cut it to the lengths needed to make 3 more stands. Today, I assembled the 3 stands and did a trial set up. It looked good, so I packed all the bits in the car ready to go on Sunday.

July 12^th, Val finished off 2 more paintings today, so now we have 16 in total. We walked up to the shops to post some letters and get a cask of red wine for Val, so had a drink at the Pub and gave their 2 Pokies a chance to redeem themselves. No luck with  the Pokies, I think Val and I are the only 2 people up here that are playing their machines. I watched the Bronco/ Sharks game tonight, very evenly matched game with the Sharks winning19 to18 points.

July 14^th, Up at 5am again, we are off to the Heritage Village Markets to sell some of Val’s Paintings. The weather didn’t impress, as we travelled into Rockhampton. We had a shower during the night and the dark clouds were still hanging around. We booked in at the Heritage and were given our site and directions to it. There were heaps of sites already set up and when we got to our site, our neighbour at the back of us, recognized us from last week’s Arcade Markets. They were professional Market People and told us that this Market was one of the best and only run every 2 months. It was the biggest we had ever seen, as it had camel, pony, mini train and coach rides along with heaps of other amusement items for the kids. Our

site was big enough that I could park the car on it, which was essential to us, for without shelter we were at the mercy of the weather. Setting us was very easy this time, with my new stands, so we were soon ready for business. 8am they let the customers in and they had huge crowds all morning. We were in a good spot as we were close to the Amenities, so people tracked past all day. For the first hour we were suffering from showers and strong winds, so our paintings were in and out of the car and for a while it must have looked strange for people to see an empty rack and us both just sitting in the car. The weather did improve and we had some long periods of sunshine. Unfortunately, although we had a lot more lookers and comments this week, we still didn’t make a sale. We are now of the opinion that our Dot Art is not a suitable item to sell at a Market and we should try to find a better outlet.

July 15^th, Maureen and Phillip moved on this morning and it is pack up day for us. We leave in the morning for Marlborough, where we will have an overnight stay, before travelling on to Mackay.