Saturday 23rd August, Beautiful Botanics and Magnificent Marine Life

Lyn and Steve had mentioned that the Mackay Botanical Gardens was a great place to go for a walk as they had walked in the gardens, yesterday. Rob and I headed off to the gardens and thoroughly enjoyed a long walking loop in the gardens. Part of the gardens were blocked off as there was going to be a music concert in the amphitheatre tonight. The performers for the “Reef and Rhythm” concert were practising and doing sound checks as we walked by. Both Rob and I were pleasantly surprised at how good the sound checks were in terms of the music. With the beautiful, warm weather and being in such a lovely location, it should be a good night. Following our walk, we stopped at the busy Garden’s Café for some refreshments. The café was located in a perfect position overlooking the lake in the gardens. From here, we drove out to the Mackay breakwater. We parked the car and started walking and soon realised that the majority of people were driving out to the end of the breakwater but we were happy to walk in the beautiful sunshine. The breakwater was originally constructed in1939 and has been progressively strengthened It was very impressive in its construction and gave great views of the marina, port and out to the ocean. We walked to the end of the breakwater. Many people who had driven out to the end, were either fishing or whale watching. When we arrived, we noticed some whales not too far from the end of the breakwater. The whales appeared to be just having fun. For over 10 minutes they were “pec slapping”, slapping their pectoral fins. We could hear the noise they were making and it was a very special sight to see and hear being so close to the breakwater. After this very special display, we walked back completing about 3.5km. We had well and truly over-achieved our step count for the day. We returned to the van to rest for a little while. Rob, Lyn and Steve watched the footy while I relaxed, reading! Later, we all went to the Mackay Surf Lifesaving to visit the “Harbour Moon Markets”. There were quite a few stalls and live music entertainment. The singers were very good and it was in a great location on the lawns, adjacent to the beach. We checked out the stalls but didn’t make any purchases. We had a bit of a laugh at all the warning signs for swimming at the Mackay Beach and decided swimming at an Adelaide beach is not so challenging as we really only have to worry about the odd shark! Back at the caravan park, we enjoyed happy hour at Lyn and Steve’s.