Aspiration for Yeppoon Main Beach

The following article was published in the daily paper on Saturday. The Weber Wave Pool and Schweeb actually exist. Google them. Imagine what they would trigger (development wise) on the Capricorn Coast. Hopefully a private developer might find it interesting enough to pursue it with Council. 

Looking over their shoulder they manoeuvred their boards in preparation for the next wave.  A perfect one point five metre tube rose behind them.  Here on Yeppoon’s main beach was their chance to perfect a 360.  The new Webber Wave Pool was an immediate hit.  With the Bruce Highway now by-passing Rockhampton, the Capricorn Regional Council was pro active in marketing Yeppoon as not just a stop over but a holiday destination.  Realising that beaches alone were not enough, in a joint venture with a private developer the Council converted the old hospital site on Anzac Parade and Appleton Park into a circular wave pool with high-rise accommodation with ground level shops on the island created in the middle of the pool.  To help overcome parking problems and add an extra element to the development a Schweeb track was built from the Scenic Highway side of Ross Creek across to the wave pool.  The novelty of the pedal powered mini mono rail saw the track quickly extend down Anzac Parade to the new Strand Hotel Apartment Complex (with further plans to extend down James Street to the shopping centres).  Face Book and You Tube videos of the Yeppoon beach front from inside the Schweeb capsules certainly weren’t hurting tourism.  Together with the northern Bruce Highway access into Yeppoon and the new Great Keppel Island resort the Capricorn Coast was now booming, attracting not only more tourists but residents and businesses as well.  Confidence in developing a mono rail train service linking Yeppoon, Emu Park with the Rockhampton train station was strengthening.  A service that would not only be utilised by tourists to see more of the Capricorn Coast, but also Rockhampton residents frequenting the coasts restaurants and new wave pool, plus Gladstone based workers who reside on the Capricorn Coast.  Enabling them to easily get the connecting Hassell Bullet train Rockhampton to Gladstone return service.

This aspiration can happen, if we make it happen.  Our future is not to see, but to create.  By showing how Central Queensland can continue to make a significant contribution to the State and nation’s economy after the resource boom gives us a stronger argument for the infrastructure needed.  Major infrastructure projects like the ones suggested here.  Infrastructure that’s needed now to help create the CQ we aspire to.