We have been in Townsville since Friday and have been enjoying being back in relative civilization – if you can call Queenslanders civilized… ?
It was a big drive across and not that interesting to say the least. The section of the Barclay Highway between Mt Isa and Richmond I am officially renaming the Barclay Track – only to be attempted with a 4WD! Seriously – someone in the Qld gov needs to have a good look at that one. It’s a shocker – like a roller coaster!
The kids were excited to get to Townsville as they were keen to stay at Caravan park they had seen in the brochures. Sam revealed the power of branding when he insisted we consider a ‘Big 4’ park next place we stay. So here we are in the Walkabout Palms Big 4 right on the edge of town and at the intersection of two of the busiest roads in Townsville! It is well set up and we have enjoyed a few days of comfort and indulgence (hot showers and electricity). The mosquitos and heat bugs that have plagued us all the way around disappeared when we got here too. Its been great to sit down at night and not be constantly swatting bugs away or waking up in the night scratching yourself… so to speak…Aside from the constant road noise that reminds us we are back in the city it has been a good place to stay.
We have been in and out of Townsville City a bit and spent a bit of time down on the Strand – the beachfront area. We have lazed around a bit and done the usual school stuff. I was finally able to download the Iphone 3.0 update which allows the phone to function as a modem, so the kids have been able to do their Mathletics and our internet hasn’t been restricted to a 3 inch Iphone screen. 3 G reception actually gives you reasonable speed and with 1 gig of download in my monthly virgin allowance we are pretty well set.
I have to say that my first impression of Qld is one of commercialism. I know we are tourists of a sort, but I have really enjoyed a ‘rougher’ Australia than we find here at the moment. I can only imagine how we will feel when we hit the Gold Coast…
As of tomorrow we begin heading north towards Cairns and the towns up that way. We don’t really know what to expect so we will just be figuring it out on the run. We got offered 3 nights in Palm Cove at a 4 ½ star resort for $200.00 which sounded tempting. It involved listening to someone drone on about Timeshare for 90 mins – which I could do with no problem and not get suckered into – but the more we thought about how we’d need to reorganize car and camper etc we decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. We are well organized in the camper now and the appeal of a luxury apartment just wasn’t enough to sway us believe it or not.
Danelle has reorganized the camper so that our storage is much more efficient. The only problem is now I have no clue where things are… It took me 9 weeks to get the hang of plan A and now I need to remember that my clothes are in the ‘bread cupboard’!
Anyway, that’s a brief update on the traveling Hamos.
A lot of roads in Queensland suffer from the fact that they do not have the good road base that we have in W.A. and the wet just makes them dippy! That stretch that you complained about is where I got terribly travel sick when I travelled by bus with Danelle and Danelle told the bus driver off for making her mum sick with his driving! She was 16.
I grew up in Wulguru….the suburb right over the back fence of the Walkabout Caravan Park. In those days it was on the fringe of the city, and kids paradise – mountains, bushland, creeks everywhere. Sounds like it’s all suburbia now.
I always thought Townsville was a better place to live, than to visit on a holiday. If you found it touristy there, can’t wait to read your reflections on Cairns and Port Douglas!