August 24 Proserpine

Well, today we had a really interesting day exploring Airlie Beach. It is a very pretty place – lots of water, islands and boats of all descriptions. When we arrived the tide was out so the beach etc all looked a bit yucky – the difference between high and low tide is quite large and as a result, at low tide the mud and rocks are exposed. Nevertheless we had a good walk around the township and water-front. We were especially impressed with Airlie Lagoon – it consists of a number of swimming areas, a bit like the one at Riverway in Townsville, surrounded by lawns, picnic areas, BBQs, play equipment etc. The water was pretty cool and combined with a cool breeze didn’t entice many people into the water although there were lots of sunbakers. We took our costumes but didn’t feel like swimming. Airlie Beach is a typical resort type town – lots and lots of accommodation places. The shops were either clothing, food or tour booking places. The people we saw basically fell into two categories – the young (teens & early twenties) and the old (like us). We’d been told that Airlie was essentially a backpackers town and I wouldn’t disagree for one minute – they were EVERYWHERE! We’ve always found that wherever there are backpackers you can usually find cheap eating joints and cheap internet. To that I should add lots of public phones – it seemed like one for every five backpackers. The hillside in Airlie is amazing – the apartments and units are just built up and up and up. There must be some amazing views and probably some amazing rental prices. While Airlie Beach is tourism dominated, the adjoining town of Cannonvale contains all the usual shopping outlets – supermarkets, hardware etc. Going by the construction underway more shopping facilities are due to be added shortly. After lunch we headed to Shute Harbour from where the ferries depart for the Whitsunday Islands. There were some great views. Feeling energetic, we decided to walk to Coral Beach (no prize for guessing why it’s called that) and then on to a lookout over the North & South Molle Islands. It really was worth the effort of walking the 4 km. After the walking around Airlie plus the hike to Coral Beach I think we should treat ourselves to a Sizzlers. Only one problem, there isn’t one. We’ll have to settle on spaghetti instead.

August 23 Proserpine

It was a bit disappointing to have to leave Townsville but on the positive side the car was heading south, towards home!

It was an interesting drive to Proserpine. From Townsville to just south of the Burdekin River there were widespread areas of sugar-cane interspersed with mango orchards. The bridge over the Burdekin is a beauty – 1103 m long with ten main spans. The bridge joins the two communities of Ayr and Home Hill – both quite pleasant looking places. We pulled up to get a photo and while walking down a steep embankment I put my foot in a deep hole covered with grass to crash quite ignominiously. The end result was a few abrasions and a sore right knee. I suppose it could have been worse – a broken leg would have put mum in the driver’s seat.

Just north of Bowen we passed through a lot of vegetable areas and stopped at a roadside stall to pick up some reasonably priced fruit (pineapples, rockmelons, oranges and mandarins) and vegies.

Bowen was a huge disappointment – a very daggy looking town and apart from the harbour and fishing didn’t appear to have a lot going for it. We couldn’t even find an Information Centre until we left town and discovered it a few kilometres south.

As we approached Proserpine we were back into sugar cane country. Between Townsville and Proserpine we counted 6 sugar mills! Proserpine isn’t anything great – just a smallish town with a population just under 5 000. It serves as the commercial centre for the Whitsundays.

We had planned to go into Airlie Beach, the jumping off point for the Whitsundays, and spend a few nights there but it was suggested to us that there’s not much there to see and do. As a result we opted to stay here and will do a day trip into Airlie Beach tomorrow. Alongside the caravan park there’s a heated pool which is free for park residents. Mum took advantage and had another training session.

August 21 & 22 Townsville

Thursday’s big news was getting the car back, at a price! The total cost of repairs was, wait for it, $1692.00 – yes, the decimal point is in the right place. That makes a total of just over $6000 spent on the transmission since July 2006. It seems to me we might need to give some serious thought to getting rid of the Prado when we get back. Originally we had hoped to be able to sell the 4WD after a few years and have enough to purchase a car however the increase in depreciation in the last couple of years has probably put paid to that strategy. (Sharon, please tell John we’d appreciate his advice when we get home.) The good news is that the whine has gone but they identified another worn part which will need replacing down the track The only thing we did yesterday was to visit the Tropical Queensland Museum. The most interesting section was the Pandora Gallery which was dedicated to the ship of that name. As I’m reading about the Mutiny on the Bounty at the moment it was really interesting. The “Pandora” was sent out to the Pacific to roundup those who were responsible for the mutiny. A number of the mutineers had been captured and the ship was on its way back to England when it sank off the northern tip of Cape York. The wreck was discovered some years ago and the museum has on display numerous artefacts from the ship as well as information about sailing and ships of that time. There’s also a reconstruction of the front of the ship and an outline on the carpet of the size of it. Today was our first “tropical” day since Emerald. While we’ve had a few hot days, this morning was hot and humid. I decided to clean the car inside and out and lost a fair bit of fluid in the process. Morning tea was provided by the caravan park so we joined in – cheesecake, scones and cream and lots of other yummies were supplied free of charge. It also gave everyone a chance to meet and have a yarn. As we didn’t need lunch we decided to go in to the Rock-pool and have a swim – the first time we’ve been able to because of the weather. Mum had her final swim at the Long Tan Pool – she loves it because it’s heated (about 27 degrees). Back on the road tomorrow, destination Proserpine. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed Townsville and been very impressed of it as a place to live. I’m not sure what it would be like in summer but then we won’t be here, so who cares. It would certainly be high up on our itinerary if we ever come this way again.

August 19 & 20 Townsville

Up until recently Townsville consisted of two twin-cities, Townsville& Thuringowa. Thuringowa was a new development area but the Qld Government recently forced through Council amalgamations so now the two are combined into “Townsville”. Yesterday the Council released their budget for the next year have increased rates by 15%. Obviously there are no government imposed limits and controls like we have in NSW.

There is a lot of development going on in and around Townsville – yesterday I counted seven buildings in the city with cranes on top. We’ve travelled through a few parts of the city where major road works are in progress. Actually the roads in Townsville are excellent. All major roads are either two or three lanes and there are cycle-ways along these major roads as well. Lots of intersections have turning lanes for cyclists.

While Townsville has The Strand as its beauty spot, Thuringowa has an area called Riverway. This consists of a walking track along both sides of the river, a cultural centre, a sporting stadium and a lagoon complex. The lagoon complex consists of two major swimming pools and a smaller wading pool but these are not ordinary swimming pools. (See the accompanying photos.) Yesterday we went down to have a look and were suitably impressed. We also went to have a look at the Cowboys’ Dairy Farmers Stadium and discovered that it actually owned by the Qld Government. We weren’t allowed inside so had to be satisfied with having a peak over the fence.

Today we visited one of the three Botanic Gardens in Townsville. It was called the Palmetum and as you may guess from the name was mainly about various palm trees. It was very appealing and attractive and also contained a memorial to the two Blackhawk helicopters which collided and crashed during a training exercise with 18 soldiers being killed.

We decided to go to Jupiters Casino for lunch – the Casino was nothing special but we had to become members to get the lunch discount.

It looks like the car will be right for Friday so we’ll leave here on Saturday and stay at Proserpine on Saturday and Sunday before moving on to Mackay for five nights. After that the next stop will be Rockhampton, then Bundaberg and Hervey Bay.

August 18 Townsville

We were up early this morning to catch the 7.45 am ferry to Magnetic Island. It’s about 8 km from Townsville and the trip takes about 20 minutes so the day was still young by the time we got there. Allan loves being a Senior and can’t wait until mum is too – the adult fare (mum) was $29 while mine was only $14.50. I shouldn’t complain too much because just about every time there’s been a Senior concession I’ve been able to get it for mum as well – rarely does anyone ask to see the Seniors Card. Having said that, Sunsea Ferries weren’t going to give the concession without sighting a card for each of us!
We both thoroughly enjoyed Magnetic Island – we were totally unprepared for the rugged nature of it – lots of granite outcrops and steep hills. The bus service runs around the villages and for $3 each (Seniors price of course!) we had unlimited on/off travel for the day.
We began at Picnic Bay and walked to a lookout with a fabulous view over parts of the island and across towards Townsville. On the way back down we met three Dutch backpackers who were excited because they’d been in Australia for 8 months and just seen their first snake!
We walked over the hill and back to Nelly Bay where the ferry terminal is. Mum was a bit concerned that walking was going to take too long but we saw a number of information signs and things we wouldn’t have seen if we’d taken the bus. From Nelly Bay we climbed over the hill to the next bay and a place called Arcadia. It was on the shore of an attractive bay with a beautiful sandy beach – mum was happy because she found a lot of coral and shells.
Over the next hill and we came to one of the most attractive places on the island, Alma Bay. It was only a small beach but with attractive rocky outcrops coming all the way down to the beach at each end. The park behind the beach was beautiful with a green lawn with picnic shelters and a playground below lots of shade trees.
The next bay, Horseshoe Bay, was a bit far to walk to so we caught the bus and were very glad we did as it was quite a climb. Horseshoe Bay was also a very attractive place and the largest and most commercial of the villages/towns.
When we got to Horseshoe Bay we were in mobile range and there was a call from the repairer. He had an exchange torque converter but Brisbane had informed him that our torque converter wasn’t really faulty and it appears the problem may also be in the gear box. He’d indicated last Friday that he and his off-sider weren’t completely convinced that the whine was coming from the converter. They thought it was, but couldn’t be certain. As a result he’s going to “open-up” the gear box and see what’s going on. My reaction was something like, “Oh no!” He said he could put the converter back in but if the noise was still there the whole thing would have to come back out again. We’ve got our fingers crossed but it doesn’t sound good.
We just heard on the news that over 80 000 people attended last week’s Culture Fest. It was the biggest ever!
These Queenslanders are just so parochial. Last week when the women’s 4 x 200 relay team won gold it wasn’t the Australian team; it was the team of “four Queenslanders”. Emma Snosill’s gold in the triathlon has been won by “Queensland, Gold Coast competitor”. Question just asked on the news – “Why are Queensland athletes dominating the medal count?”

August 15, 16, 17 Townsville

A bit of catching up to do in this report! On Friday we decided to travel north to Paluma Range National Park – as we have unlimited kilometres on the hire car, why not use them? It was 60 km north of Townsville and then 22 km west, 18 km of which was uphill, narrow and winding. Paluma Range NP is the start of the Wet Tropics, a series of national parks extending north to the Daintree. For a rainforest, it was quite dry but there were some good views down over the coastline and out to sea towards Palm Island which is an aboriginal reserve. Yesterday we went into the city to visit Reef HQ and were very pleasantly surprised. It’s a bit like Sydney Aquarium except that it’s devoted to the reef. It was fascinating to see the reef fish and other species close up in a number of aquaria. While we were there we saw a Dive Show in the main tank – a scuba diver fitted with a microphone entered the tank and provided a terrific commentary and insights into the variety of sharks and other creatures. At 3 o’clock there was a feeding tour and the guides took us around the various tanks as the fish were fed. It was an absolute frenzy once the food was tossed in to the two larger tanks. All in all a very interesting and entertaining visit. Mum went to have a swim but unfortunately the pool was due to close – have to check the times more carefully. Townsville has been celebrating its diversity of cultures this week in the form of a five-day Culture Fest. We decided to check it out and were very glad we did. I counted over 25 different food stalls and we only sampled three of them. Apart from the food there were performances from different groups and a range of market type stalls. Today we began with breakfast at Sizzlers – an all you could eat affair for $14 – needless to say we didn’t require any lunch. There were two Sunday markets in Townsville today – one was largely second-hand junk so we didn’t stay there long but the main markets in Townsville’s Mall were quite good and we were able to pick up some reasonably priced vegies. We were pleased to find a stall selling tropical fruit so lashed out and bought a sample of each. The photo shows what we bought: the large dark green fruit (back left) is black sapote; the yellow pieces are canistel; on the right are carabola or star fruit; the two brown pieces are sapodilla and the prickly looking ones are rambutan.

August 14 Townsville

Another “look around” day. We began by checking out a couple of the warehouses nearby – just across the road is a shopping centre for warehouse type businesses – Sportscene had lots of bargains, especially shoes and clothing. I bought a pair of $119 shoes for $79! Mum bought a set of dumb-bells for $20. She’s been on the lookout for a set since she saw a bloke in Emerald exercising with some. Toyworld had a massive building filled with just about everything you could imagine – Jack’s birthday was taken care of.

Next we wanted to have a look at the centre of the CBD and found it a bit sad, very sad actually, and definitely a long way inferior to Wollongong. The Townsville Mall is the subject of discussion just as ours is and many of the same options are being debated. Townsville doesn’t have any major department stores like Myer or DJs although there is some redevelopment about to be carried out. We were very disappointed with the CBD as there is just nothing to attract people to the city centre – markets are held in the Mall every Sunday and are apparently quite popular. We’ll find out on Sunday.

One of the big things in Townsville’s favour is parking. Apart from a number of parking stations there is a huge area just across the river where free parking is available. A free bus service runs to the city centre but as it’s only a short walk across a footbridge we didn’t wait for the bus.

Mum shouted lunch at the Cowboys’ Leagues Club which is in the Mall - $5.50 each and was quite good. It also gave us a chance to rest up and watch the swimming on the big screen.

Mum had a training swim at the pool on the Strand and did almost as much as yesterday. Given she hasn’t been able to swim for five weeks there’s a bit of catching up to do. I timed her over 200m breaststroke in the 25m pool and she was happy with 4 mins 40 sec.

Yesterday we came across a water playground on the Strand but the water is turned off on Wednesdays so we went back to have a look today. Absolutely brilliant. The kids there were having a great time even though it wasn’t very hot. Right at the very top is a huge bucket and when it fills with water it tips over and pours the water out. See todays photos!

We’ve decided to stay on here an extra four days so will now leave on Sat 23^rd. There’s enough to keep us occupied and I don’t believe the car will be back on the road by Monday. Tomorrow we should get a better idea of the repairs time line. Where we’ll go when we leave is up in the air, probably back to Charters Towers for a few days – after that, who knows?