December Story 23: 28/12/2020 Rocky to Harvey Bay

 After dropping in at Nanma and Poppy’s place to have a final meal of Poppy’s pasta and special sauce, at Kirra’s request, it was time to hit the road, and make last holiday stop. The drive from Rockhampton to Harvey Bay felt a little long, by this stage were tired but didn’t want the holiday to end. We were happy to add another destination, unpack our overnight bags, and go somewhere we had never been before. Harvey Bay was pretty cool, so cool we would go again. It’s a retirement capital but seemed to have a big number of grandparents, and their grannies (grandkids) in tow for the school holidays.

In the first afternoon there, it was only really time to find something for dinner and make the most of the pool at the overpriced hotel (thanks COVID ha!). Travelling in Australia has gotten even more expensive since the pandemic a,s families who would normally find cheaper holidays overseas, now stay home for domestic travel and local holidays. Harvey Bay definitely has a personality of it’s own with fancy boutiques with ‘supervise your children’ signs. The nautical themed shops and tourist souvenir stores were not likely to inspire a spending spree, but they were interesting and they did give us the holiday vibe. I’m not quite sure how I feel about the ‘no pineapple on pizza’, pizza shop sign, but know for sure, that wasn’t going to be the place for dinner with two little ones who love Hawaiian Pizza. Shout out to the gelato place. There were three ice-cream shops to choose from on the main road along the beach. I’m not sure if we picked the best one, it was hard to tell the difference between the three main gelato shops in the street and all were empty when we were walking by them. The one we picked had the most amazing number of vegan flavours and supersized serves. It catered well for allergies and different diets. There were line ups of people, and it have been they are normally generous, or that the freezer doors never remain closed long enough, so the soft ice-cream makes for bigger serves. Either way, it was fun. We ordered pizza to the hotel, and based on the hotel managers / owners recommendation chose a local pizza shop. In the hotel room we drank soft drink from wine glasses. The heat made us a little tired, and there was a big tree full of mangos that we could see from the back window of our hotel room. At reception a Christmas tree was decorated with beach shells that were turned into hanging ornaments. The girls didn’t want to go anywhere near the beach so I crossed the road, and walked through the trees to snap a few photos of the ocean before it got too dark. It was story time back in the room. I’ll be back to get my feet in the water next time.