Capricorn Caves

Marcia

The area north of Rockhampton got hit by Tropical Cyclone Marcia on 20. February 2015. The category 5 storm made landfall near Yeppoon. There are still some houses covered with tarpaulins and a section of the coast road near Yeppoon is still being rebuilt. Once you look closely one also notices a lot of fallen trees in bushland areas. It also shows how resilient nature is - some of the trees have lost most of its limbs, however they are now all covered in re-growth and it is actually pretty hard to spot the storm damage.

Severe Tropical Cyclone Marcia was a Category 5 severe tropical cyclone that made landfall at its peak strength over central Queensland, near Shoalwater Bay on 20 February 2015.[1] The cyclone went on to affect various areas including Yeppoon and Rockhampton. It reached Yeppoon as a Category 4 system, then traversed over the regional city of Rockhampton as a Category 3 system on the same day. Eventually, the cyclone weakened, moved southeast out to sea, then dissolved. Marcia caused at least A$750 million (US$590.5 million) worth of damage.[2]

some of the damage from cyclone Marcia and tree regrowth

Capricorn Caves

The Caravan park near the Capricorn Caves got badly hit by Marcia and it took them 2 months to fully clear the sites. They had to move some 80 truck loads of rubbish.

Capricorn caves - a dry cave system

We all enjoyed the tour through the caves. There is one hall called the Cathedral. They are having lots of weddings in there and even some opera singers as the natural acoustics is fantastic. Sarah really enjoyed the climbing up and down and exploring the narrow paths. But she was very glad to be sitting on mammy's lap when they turned off the light in the Cathedral and everything went pitch black.

Capricorn caves was formed millions of years ago by the sea, but eventually got lifted out of the water by tectonic movements. It's now a dry cave system above the water level and the only wet is coming from rain onto the surrounding rocks. 

On the road again

On the road towards Mackay and Martin using a stick to drag Sarah around in the cold water

Today we had a driving day - there isn't much to stop at between Rockhampton and Mackay. It is especially hard to find a nice playground for Sarah to let her energy out. We eventually stopped at Flaggy Rock at the old school. It's a nice spot for self containt vehicles with a nice care-taker couple, a playground and a swimming pool. However the water was too cold for anyone above three and so I had to drag Sarah through the water with a stick.

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Hi Martin, Regine and Sarah. I'm really enjoying following your blog. Thanks for some pics of the cyclone hit area, the tree regrowth is really interesting. The caves look like lots of fun and Sarah is very brave for swimming in that cold water! Happy travels. xx Jacqui
— Jacqui
Thanks Jacqui. The caves were super interesting even though Sarah was asking our tour guide to stop talking and move on every time he stopped to explain the cave system and the history behind it. :-)
— Sarah, Regine & Martin
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