Something strange is going on on the beaches. Millions and millions of tiny balls of sand are appearing on the beaches on each turn of the tide. We’ve seen lots of these balls along the beaches of Sydney but in Yeppoon things are on an altogether grander scale.

Here on Farnborough Beach at Yeppoon extending 17km long and approximately 200-metres wide, these tiny sand balls are taking over the beach. And what is creating them? Sand crabs. Now just think of the scale of this. The crabs are tiny at around 1.5cm across. When the tide goes out the crabs tunnel up to the surface of the beach collecting sand on the way, forming them into tiny balls and depositing them in an organised pattern around their tunnel. Four sand balls just fit into one square centimetre. The area of the beach entirely covered is approximately 3.4 million square metres, which means these incredibly industrious crabs are creating 13,600,000,000 sand balls twice a day, day after day after day only to get washed away with the next tide.

Double Head National Park

Adjacent to Keppel Bay Marina is Double Head National Park, which, as its name suggests, has two peaks reaching out into the sea. Of the two, Fan Hill is the easiest to access with great lookouts on the way up the steep track and from the top looking in all directions. Both hills are the remnants of volcanic activity in the area and are comprised of hexagonal columns of basalt bent and twisted over the years.

Even if you are not interested in the geology of the region, a walk to the top is definitely worth the effort for the views alone, and at the time we were here in June you’ll be surrounded by butterflies and moths. Access to the walk is from the right of the marina. A new car park is being constructed and the walk starts to the left of the new car park.

The name Fan Hill originates from the shape of the rock formation visible at the first lookout of the walk.

Though it may not be too clear from the photograph of the lava formation, a central column of magma broke its way through the earth’s crust and radiated outwards. The lava cooled slowly and eventual cracked into the hexagonal patterns we see today. Where it is now exposed at the lookout a fan shape has formed where the surrounding rock has eroded or broken free.

Blueberry Pancakes

We had spotted a nice looking cafe as we drove along the Yeppoon seafront yesterday and decided to give it a try. Called Lure Living, the cafe is a relaxing place to spend a couple of hours especially for breakfast where the best Blueberry Pancakes I’ve ever tasted can be savoured. I’m not sure how they make them so light and fluffy but they are very highly recommended. The coffee is pretty good too. One thing to note though, in Yeppoon most places close early so get your orders in before 2pm or you will be disappointed.

We’d also highly recommend ‘Flour’ cafe on the main street for excellent salads, quiches, cakes to die for and Toby’s Estate coffee.

BBQ Pizza

Having cooked our first steaks on our Weber Baby Q recently, which were a revelation, we decided to give the Pizza stone a try. We normally use Lebanese flatbread for pizzas at home but they’re too large for the mini Weber. Instead we bought a pre-made pizza bread thin base made by Bazaar, which fitted the pizza stone perfectly. And what a great pizza the Weber makes. It takes almost twice as long as our home oven and doesn’t quite melt the cheese as much but it produces an excellent crisp base without drying-out the tomato paste.

We’ll be trying our own pancakes soon but first a long walk along Farnborough Beach to walk-off some of our recent treats.