Townsville Qld

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Owing to the inclement weather in Mission Beach, which lies in the wet tropics, we opted to head for Townsville, which lies in the dry tropics, and thus, enjoyed fine weather for our planned seven day stay, which we stretched out to eleven days.

We stayed at the Riverside Convention Centre Caravan Park, which is a church owned park, conveniently located along Townsville’s main river and relatively central in Townsville. Townsville Council has done a great job of creating parks along both sides of virtually the whole length of the river as it winds through Townsville city.

On our first full day, we walked 6.7 kms in a loop along both sides of the river from our van park. That night we met up with friends that we were staying next to in Ravenshoe Caravan Park, Glenn and Mandy from Victoria, and went out to dinner at a restaurant located on the Strand waterfront in Townsville. Sitting just near us at the restaurant were Australian cricketers Aaron Finch and Glenn Maxwell, which prompted me to check what they were doing in Townsville. Google informed me that there was a One Day Series between Australia and Zimbabwe at Riverway Stadium, with the next match scheduled for the coming Wednesday. This was the day I had booked in the Isuzu for a 15k service, and I asked Kim if she would mind going to the cricket for the day. That was an enthusiastic yes, I'm sure I heard.

The Isuzu Courtesy Bus dropped us off at the cricket and picked us up at 2.30pm, with Australia having won comfortably. It was great day out and I had the opportunity to get to speak to a couple of the players. Kim even said it was a good day out, seeing we were carless.

On our last visit to Townsville some fifteen years ago, we had stayed on Magnetic Island for one week, and really enjoyed the experience. We booked a day trip to Maggie as it’s affectionally known, and had a great day, swimming, eating fish and chips (and gelato), and checking out the bays we had previously visited.

The Botanical Gardens is located just across the bridge from the Riverside Convention Centre, and we enjoyed walking through the various sections of the excellently kept gardens. Being a military town, it was a sombre experience to visit the memorial within the gardens to the eighteen SAS soldiers who lost their lives when two Black Hawk helicopters collided near Townsville in 1996. Absolute Cravings is the name of the café located at the edge of the Botanical Gardens, and it lived up to its name, when we stopped in for lunch. The café has a predominately vegan menu, and is located in a historical building overlooking the gardens.

On our previous visit to Townsville, we had looked up in awe at Castle Rock, a red granite monolith that towers over the city. The Americans at the end of WW2, offered to use up their armaments and blow up the mountain, and use the rock to build a causeway out to Magnetic Island. Fortunately, the city leaders rejected their offer. We didn’t get the opportunity to climb Castle Rock on our previous visit, so we resolved that now was the time. There are two walking tracks from the city side of Castle Rock that one can use to reach the summit, being the Goat Track and the Cudtheringa Track. Not being mountain goats, we elected to tackle the Cudtheringa Track, which turned out to be longer that the Goat Track and joined up with the Goat Track half way up. It was 1,420 stairs up to the summit, and our calves were sure feeling It when we reached the top. The view though was sensational, looking down over Townsville and out to Magnetic Island. There was still a war time lookout bunker in place, which had searched for enemy ships, subs and aircraft that could attack. After the walk, we visited the salt water lagoon along the Strand and cooled off with a swim.

In looking at Google Maps, I noticed there were freshwater lagoons near Riverway Stadium, and so we set out to walk the 5 kms along the river to the lagoons for a swim. Council has done an amazing job to build these swimming lagoons, which are patrolled, well maintained but under utilized. After a relaxing swim, we walked back along the river, stopping off at Absolute Cravings for a juice and cake.

The length of our stay in Townsville gave us the chance to perform some maintenance on the caravan, and give it a good wash down. We drove into town, walked along the Strand and swam in the saltwater lagoon several times during our stay, enjoying lunch looking out across the water to Magnetic Island.

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