TOWNSVILLE TO AIRLIE BEACH
Day 17 - Thursday 1st October
BALGAL BEACH TO TOWNSVILLE
Today we headed to Townsville, a city bigger than Cairns and the capital of North Queensland. We had a few chores to complete unfortunately. Firstly and most importantly, getting the car radio to work. Nothing beats driving down a long and open road, singing along with the radio cranked up, but ours doesn't work so we've been using a piddly little portable thing up till now. This had to change. We headed to Autobarn, who after a quick check gave us a new bracket, this fixed the radio popping out the socket problem but there was still a lot of dodgy wiring to be sorted. The auto electricals place round the corner said they could fix it for us so we booked Vanny in for the next morning. We also bought a cigarette lighter adapter that meant we could have 6 things charging at once, this would revolutionise our lives!! That afternoon we went for a swim in the rock pool - a salt water swimming pool at the northern point of town. It was a lovely spot and we managed to sneak in a shower.
We had fish and chips for lunch at Harold's, a well known chippy. I had barramundi and chips, it was delicious, although I managed to squeeze ketchup all over myself, something I seem to do rather well (mum and dad - remember in Glasgow!!)
We made dinner at a day use area when it was pretty dark. A couple of cars stopped near us, or drove into the car park and stopped for a while then drove off. It was a bit weird and about 15 minutes later the police came. They too just drove into the car park, then drove off. We took it as a less than subtle warning that we weren't in trouble... yet... but definitely couldn't park up and sleep there. Which we weren't planing on doing anyway! We drove off to a BP truck stop after dinner where you could stay for free, and watched Game of Thrones in our living room.
I must also comment on the build up to the National Rugby League (NRL) final in Townsville. The local team, the North Queensland Cowboys, have never won the premiership, and so everyone is excited they've made the final and the tension leading up to Sunday's game is palpable in the town. In every shop there are signs spurring on their team, we even debated whether we should stay in Townsville a few extra days to watch the match there.
Day 18 - Friday 2nd October
TOWNSVILLE
In the morning we finally got the car radio fixed. While they were doing the work, we went to the public library that was just round the corner and used their free wifi to get tonnes of photos online for the blog. By the time we were done it was lunch time, we went to a supermarket and bought half a roast chicken and had delicious sandwiches overlooking the marina. It sounds picturesque, and it was, but Townsville was bloody windy so everything was a little bit tricky.
Our final job in town was to register for Medicare, Australia's NHS. Chores done, we headed up to Castle Hill and were surprised to find half the town up there jogging! We have found Australian towns to be so empty, so seeing that many people out walking their dogs and jogging with friends was pretty cool. There was also a lovely view of the marina and ocean.
Friday night is night market night in Townsville, so we headed there to see thousands of candle stalls. As we weren't in the market for a scented candle, we headed for the stall that had a 5 year old crocodile as its main exhibit. They were from the Billabong sanctuary that was just out of town, and after seeing the baby croc, we decided we should head there tomorrow to meet his parents.
After a few drinks at a surf themed bar (oh dear) we had some food at the market and then headed back to the truck stop for some more Game of Thrones. Unfortunately we only had 6 episodes of series 5 so now we are stuck in limbo until we find someone else who has it saved on their hard drive to copy it from!
Day 19 - Saturday 3rd October
TOWNSVILLE TO AIRLIE BEACH
We got to the Billabong Sanctuary at opening time and headed straight for the koalas who were being fed. It was the first time either of us had seen a koala and it was awesome! They looked so cuddly and dopey. Apparently they sleep for 20 hours a day as their diet of eucalyptus leaves gives them hardly any energy. Either way, they were super cute and we loved watching them, especially when one walked backwards along a branch and backed into the one behind him.
Next up was a crocodile predicting the outcome of the NFL final for the local news. We felt it was slightly biased as the trainer was clearly a huge Cowboys fan and was dangling the meant with the Cowboys logo much lower than the Broncos one, so it was hardly surprising when the crocodile predicted that the Cowboys would win! At one point, it looked like the croc was going for the Broncos and the guy pulled them both out of his reach, saying he couldn't possibly let him chose the wrong team.
There were loads of small kangaroos around the park and you could feed them seed from your hand. It was brilliant! And also the first time we'd seen live kangaroos (instead of as roadkill). One grabbed onto Wills hand to ensure he got to eat the whole handful and stop another roo from muscling in. We also fed a cassowary grapes through the fence and fed turtles little bits of fish.
Another first was seeing a wombat. He was our absolute favourite animal there and it's easy to see why. He was a big lazy cuddly thing and we wanted to take him home.
The cockatoo was awesome too. He only liked the black seeds in the bag of seed mix that we had, so when you held up a handful, he would sort through with his beak, finding all the black seeds and storing them in his beak. Then he would go through them with his beak and tongue, cracking the shell and eating the seed, without dropping any of them. It was incredible to watch!
The headline act of the day was the crocodile feeding. The handlers got far too close for comfort, dangling meat, whilst the crocodiles lay waiting under water. Then they would suddenly launch themselves out of the water, 5 foot in the air to grab the food. The sound of their jaws crashing together was insane and I was rather glad it wasn't my job to feed them. One slip up and you would be on the menu for sure. It was incredible that you literally couldn't see a 5 metre long croc in the shallow water right until the last second. They were cunning and they were fast moving. We were told that one of the males had killed his last three girlfriends!! But his current girlfriend won him over by biting his face when they first met and now they get on swimmingly.
The fresh water crocodiles were a little less scary, in that they aren't big enough to eat humans. Their mouths are much narrower and sharper than their salt water cousins. The jaws still made an almighty crash when they chomped down on some meat.
After a quick shower we started our drive to Airlie Beach where we hoped we'd be able to do a Whitsunday's boat trip. On the drive we passed through the town of Bowen. It had been where the movie 'Australia' had been filmed, and high above the town, painted on to the water tower, was the 'Bowenwood' sign, which we loved! Another reason to love the town was for their pun capabilities, as one establishment was named 'The Bowen Arrow Hotel'.
We arrived in Airlie Beach and stayed at Ben's place. Ben is a guy who owns a great (if hilly) piece of land just a 10 minute drive from Airlie Beach, who has opened his gates for any traveller to stay for free. He lights a campfire every night and there are loads of chairs for people to sit around the fire and chat. It's the only camp site we've been to that's had such a strong community feel, with people getting to know each other, and because of this, most people stay a few days instead of moving on. That evening we met two lovely couples, Lee and Abby from the UK and Nacho and Steffi from Uruguay. We spent the evening comparing camper vans. They both had beautiful pop top Toyota Hi-Aces with living space and kitchens inside. They were definitely the big boys in town and Vanwell felt a little emasculated. We reassured him that we loved him just the way he was.
Day 20 - Sunday 4th October
AIRLIE BEACH
We woke at 5am and set up the laptop and tethered it to the wifi on our phone, all to see England get spectacularly knocked out of the Rugby World Cup by Australia. We went back to bed for a few hours when it had finished to sleep off the defeat. Luckily we are still in a non rugby union loving area so we would be relatively safe from comments from smug Aussies all day.
We spent the day hanging out with our new camp friends at the town lagoon. It was cool driving to town in a convoy, honk honk! The lagoon was a lovely swimming spot and it was a gorgeous hot day.
At 4pm we staked out our position at Magnums Bar to watch the grand final of the rugby league: Townsville Cowboys vs Brisbane Broncos. As we'd been in Townsville a few days ago, we'd seen the build up and how excited the town was to be in the final, so we decided to cheer for them.
It was a brilliant match, pretty level scoring throughout. With less than one minute to go, the Broncos were on 16 and the Cowboys were trailing with 12. In what was the last play of the match, the Cowboys scored an incredible try, right in the corner of the field. The bar exploded, with people jumping up on tables, hugging in excitement. We thought it was all over, but in rugby league a try is worth 4 points, not 5. They were drawing! So now came the biggest kick of Johnathan Thurston's career, to make the conversion and win the match, or miss and force the game to go to sudden death. The bar was silent as he ran up to take the kick. It looked to be a winner, but with these things looks can be deceiving. We watched in astonishment as the ball hit the post and bounced back onto the field. He had missed. It was sudden death time. The crowd had gone from the despair of thinking they had lost, to the elation that they might actually have a chance, straight back to the disappointment of missing the crucial kick, all in the space of 2 minutes!!
However, their luck was not over yet. An error made by a Broncos players resulted in the Cowboys winning the ball. After a few attempts they managed to get the ball back to the kicker with enough space to go for a drop goal. And the rest, as they say, is history. What was rather nice, was that the guy who kicked the winner was the same guy who minutes earlier had missed the conversion. As you can imagine, the place went wild! It was such an entertaining match and as we had adopted the winning team as our own, made up for our early morning heartbreak at England losing.
We went back to Ben's by taxi and stayed up drinking with the others, exuberant at the win as if it were our own team. We were treated to an amazing acoustic set in Lee and Abby's Van. They play the guitar and ukulele and were unique, haunting performers. They both wrote their own songs and performed as a duo and solo. There is something so special and intimate when someone shares with you a song they have written about an emotional time in their life. And the fact that we were sat in a camper van, with only torch light, made for a pretty unique evening.
Day 21 - Monday 5th October
AIRLIE BEACH
Unfortunately it was time to say goodbye to our new friends, as they had been here longer than us and it was time for them to carry on their journeys south. We decided we made a pretty good six-some and vowed to hook up with everyone later in the trip. Both vans are now proud supporters of Hills
and Waves and have the sticker to prove it.
We headed in to town to try to book this elusive Whitsunday's boat trip. As it was a bank holiday in Aus, there was a cute market on the waters edge. Unfortunately the toilet block where we were hoping to have an outdoor shower was smack bang in the middle of the market. So as well dressed middle aged Aussies shopped for opals and other such trinkets, Will stripped to his shorts and soaped up! There was also the small but important matter of doing the laundry.
After a confusing couple of hours researching which boat trip to pick, we ended up booking on to a small boat called Prima, spending way more than we'd hoped but Australia is bloody expensive as we are realising. It takes 12 guests and we got out own private room. The rest is noise.
That evening we returned to Bens and cooked a huge veggie risotto, then hung out by the fire. There were lots of Germans staying that night. We also got to meet the elusive Ben. He had been in the army for 20 years and taught us how to make fire, Will ate a green ant (apparently it was very citrusy) and we learnt to make a whistle from a beer can. Eh!?
Day 22 - Tuesday 6th October
AIRLIE BEACH
We had a few chores to get through, including filling up our gas bottle for the first time, buying oil for Vanny, and checking in for our boat trip tomorrow
Then it was time to swim in the lagoon for our daily exercise. We have found it is pretty tricky to get exercise when you are traveling and this is especially true when you are on a road trip. Whenever there is a free swimming pool we have vowed to put in a few lengths to try to keep fit.
We whiled away the afternoon drinking incredible Western Australian Sauvignon Blanc with a sea view, then headed back up to Bens for our last night on dry land.