Day 177 The last couple of days have been pretty leisurely. Rocky does not have an abundance of tourist attractions, especially without wheels. It is however located on the Tropic Of Capricorn. Sunday we found some parks to visit, one of which happened to have the Rockhampton Pony Club. They were running a competition throughout the day. There must have been close to a hundred horses and riders hanging out and competing. We were treated to some amateur and intermediate showjumping as well as some junior barrel races. It was a swell way to enjoy the sunshine and fill the day.
Monday morning the mechanic opened and after taking a few details they dropped us off at a hostel on the North side of town. Without hesitation we hopped in the on suite shower and got ready for the day. We got a private cabin as it was only $10 more than shared accommodation.The hostel wasn't far from a main street with shops and a mall. It's been quite a while since we went to a north American style mall. We found a few good bargains to boot. Having a full kitchen at the hostel to take advantage of we got ingredients and made pasta and a casserole.
Tuesday morning the van was ready. Checkout time was 10 am so we were already halfway to the garage when they called to tell us. They sent a car out and picked us up where we were. Needless to say the repair wasn't cheap and we are going to have a couple of busy days ahead exploring the region so we went back to the zoo and the lagoon. We brought some bread with us to feed the turtles and ducks this time. Well, the other day when I said dozens of turtles I was hugely understating. When the bread came out it was turtle chaos. I now deem the number of turtles there to be in the hundreds. After having some lunch and chillaxing by the water we remembered that the monkeys at the zoo had a 3pm feeding so we headed over. There are four monkeys at the zoo. The two males have been there 25 years and the two females are new. They each got a plate of yogurt with a spoon. Sure enough they had no problem using set spoon. The zookeeper told us that they are not trained monkeys and they learn these skills on their own. When they were done with the yogurt they slid the plate and spoon back out under the fence and received a drinking box, which one of the monkeys even drank using the straw! Took the straw out of the plastic and all just using his mouth. Kind of makes you think. Ours and chimps DNA is 98.4% the same. Are looks really that tiny part of our DNA? Hmmm.