Before doing some grocery shopping this morning, we drove down Millennium Esplanade. There are great facilities by way of picnic shelters and BBQs all the way along the Esplanade. Interestingly each of the shelters features a different motif, such as an ant, palm tree, gecko, bee, etc. and no doubt locals could say "meet you at the ant" when going there to meet friends. We stopped just near the Surf Life Saving Club. A feature here, the Hippocampus Whitei (White's seahorse) sculpture is made from discarded materials sourced from heavy and rural industries throughout the Calliope region. The seahorse fossil was commissioned in 2000 as part of the redevelopment of the foreshore - thus the Millennium name. Hear what the artist Christopher Trotter had to say here.

Even though we read the plaque behind the sculpture at first we didn't notice the crab sculpture above the plaque.

 

Along the Esplanade at this point there are a couple of novel traffic calming installations, being road humps consisting of raised areas in the shape of turtles.

From this point access to the lookout above can be gained via a staircase, but we chose to the easier method of driving there. Here there is a marker with a plaque commemorating the opening of the Millennium Esplanade redevelopment on Australia Day, 26^th January 2000. This area provides a great vantage point out to sea and we could see at least 8 ships presumably anchored awaiting a berth at the Port of Gladstone. No doubt we'll learn more about that when we do the Port of Gladstone Harbour Tour tomorrow.

Held on the first Saturday of each month from March – December between 2pm – 7pm, Beach Arts Music (BAM) is advertised as "a free family friendly community event featuring food and market stalls, live entertainment, arts and creation stalls and lots more". And that's what we found when we ventured back down to the Millennium Esplanade around 3pm. This time we were on foot as it's just 500m or so from the caravan park and with the crowd attending, we wouldn't have been able to park much closer anyway.

The locals obviously knew the drill and many brought their own folding chairs so they could sit and take in the various music performances on the main stage. After walking up and down the row of stalls selling the usual market offerings, we were fortunate in finding a vacant park bench in the shade just to the side of the stage and spent several hours sitting there taking in the sights and sounds. Lucinda was taking particular note of the variety of tattoos on those passing by.

It was after 6pm and beginning to get dark by the time we made our way back to the van. Dinner was a stir fry of chicken and vegetables with a honey, garlic and soy sauce. A banana and a cup of tea with the last of our donuts rounded dinner out. While eating dinner we watched the Australian Boomers defeat the Dominion Republic at the FIBA World Cup in China, in a game that was closer than expected. Unfortunately the Bulldogs were bundled out of the AFL finals after being beaten this afternoon by GWS.