City Oasis Inn Townsville

... to The Strand (Townsville's main seafront road and evening gathering place).

On the way we noticed (and heeded) lots of the Cassowary warning signs but did not see any cassowaries. The signs are a bit curious because they seem to show that a collision with one of these birds seems to rock the poor character back on his heels but he remains intact. On the other hand, the car appears to be much worse affected with substantial damage to body and to glass!

Townsville, Queensland, Australia jenandtony

... br>
Townsville is very well serviced by retail outlets – every brand name is here, however we were really disappointed with the city heart. The Flinders Street Mall is reminiscent of a retail ghost town, apparently awaiting a refurbishment. The only time the place comes to life is on a Sunday morning for the local markets, which we did attend, they were quite good and we purchased some much longed for tropical fruits - yummo.

Our favourite ...

... Unfortunately the only main bad thing about the day was that it was too windy and the water too churnned up for diving which we had originally planned to do. Still managed to find plenty to keep us occupied - even if that just meant lying around on the beach. Got home to discover the kids hadn't missed us at all and mum and dad had survived - brilliantly! Maybe should do it again tomorrow? Would be nice.... Thanks a million mum and dad.

... found near sharks so that must mean that their host was nearby! In the evening downtime, Steve pursued his new brainteasing activity--trying to understand the game of cricket (Ashes,anyone?-Drew, are you there?). It caught on as the boys' new sports hero is Ricky Ponting.

Once again, the photos should do the talking...Sincere thanks to the Butsons as this was a highlight in a trip filled with exceptional places

... that the bank manager rang to say our package had arrived.

By hook and by crook, everything was done by Thursday evening. We were off!

We stayed at Mercure in Townsville – the second-tiniest motel in the world, but that was OK because it was just to sleep in. I set my phone alarm to 4 o'clock so we can get to the airport by 5. And we did NOT stay up all night watching documentaries. It took a lot of arguing to get Danny to set his alarm as a backup.

... names) had been booked on the bus by the government to go on a court hearing or something like that.... Greyhound has their names and even better: they are booked on a return journey 2h later....

Marcus, Dom and I go to th epolice and report the theft and the fact they can access the names of these two people who are likely to be the criminals.. at first I feel thet the policeman is not beothered and not going to do anything about it.... I have to come back in 30 minutes to ...

... supermarket briefy picking up supplies again, before deciding to go out for pizza! So we had a lovely evening, and we all went to bed full and happy :-) On Saturday we woke up early to join in the Anzac Day festivites (Anzac day is basically their version of Remembrance day and involves lots of parades). So we watched the Townsville parade, which had a great atmosphere, and paraded veterans and servicemen from all the armed forces ...

... It's like "Keeyyyyrns"!! The esplanade is really lovely with a large swimming pool band barbecue areas. It is really family oriented. We had a quick lunch here as well.

We wanted to check to waterfalls, big and small creeks. After a while the road just stopped and continued on a red dirt road. We drove until the road was actually blocked and we needed to turn back. We checked the gorges and came back into the car ...

... here! We all like it so much and the time was passing so quickly (especially also because of their diving course), so that we decided today to stay on the island a little bit longer instead of going back to Townsville or somewhere else (they've just got their holidays until Jan 4!). But that also means for me and Jenny to move to another place, because at our guest house here there's no room for tomorrow night. But that's no problem, because we already know where to go ...

... Katie slept next to me.

At least with the long drive today we were closer to the Whitsunday Islands, and it was pretty obvious that they would be rather more attractive than Townsville. We hoped!


Lots of love,


Al & Katie xx