Advertisement
Published: March 1st 2009
Edit Blog Post
We arrived in Townsville pretty late and our first views were through torrential downpours..not good fun driving around in the dark trying to find the place you have never seen before. The apartment was BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we were all gobsmacked!! We fell on our feet and got the master bedroom with king size bed, ensuite bathroom with spa bath and a tv!! The kitchen was gorgeous and had a breakfast bar and the sofas and big widescreen tv were just the ticket! Lovely pool and spa and right opposite the ferry terminal to the island so very convenient, plus only a short walk from the main street of Townsville.
We spent our first evening having a few drinks just chilling out with everyone but Matt and i had been up working early so called it a night around 2am whereas the girls stopped out and apparently had some serious drunken walk home at the end of the night.
Our 2 weeks in Townsville was dominated by nothing but rain, cyclone double team caught us although the centre of it missed us everywhere was suffering and numbers were pretty low although we still managed to do pretty well. One of the crazy
stories from all the rain, some guy ran over a 2 metre crocodile in the middle of a road because the river had overflowed and it had come out! mental! Whislt we were there we celebrated Lindsays birthday with a nice meal and a trip to the Casino followed by a few drinking games and some pillow fights (well Lindsay went to bed early but the rest of us had fun!!) After the 2 weeks once again tensions were high with only one of our fellow workers this time (yes you may think it is starting to sound like WE are the problem but honestly..everyone else loves us..seriously our boss ADORES matt!!!!!!) anyway the girls finsihed their 2 week trial and Linsdsay was going to go home and consider whether she wanted the job so we waved goodbye and she hasnt been back since but Monique came along with us and we are newly formed A-team.
Rain eventually stopped, but not before we had to stay an extra week because of road flooding between there and the next place we were due to be working, we moved shopping centres but the numbers were still pretty low as people
were still not venturing into town because of the roads. We did however, manage to get over to Magnetic Island for our Sunday off, we expected some serious rain but it held off until late evening. We got the ferry over and then headed to Bluey's horseshoe ranch where we saddled up and went for a bush and beach ride. My trusty steed was named Dale and his brother was Matt's charge called Clyde.
We rode with a girl from England..bit of a posh girl called Molly who thought a lot of herself!! Anyway, we were riding with another couple who were complete beginners and the girl was scared to touch her horse in case it 'killed her' (we later discovered she was a bit of a hypocondriac!) anyway we were on our way through the bushland in no time, spotting a few kangaroos on the way.
Our horses were quite difficult as they'd only do what each other was doing so one stopped, everyone stopped one trotted, the other did and so on! Matt's was definately more mischeivous than mine but it was funny to watch!!
We rode for about and hour and then stopped on the beach,
donned some sexy stinger suits and de-saddled the horses and then rode them bare-back in the sea. Quite an experience very strange indeed!!! A few of us had a go at standing on their backs and turning around etc which was fun apart from trying to get back on again without a stirrup!! Very enjoyable day generally and only slightly saddle-sore and very tired especially when we missed the early evening ferry home and had to wait an hour to get the next one.
Our final week in Townsville was ok, just a little boring and seeing the same face again and again. We did however actually get to see some of the photographs we had taken previously as one of the moms from the first week brought her prints in to show us, it was amazing to see them in physical form rather than just on the digital screen, we felt quite proud as it was actually one of the sittings we didnt think would come out so well!!
We began a MAMMOTH drive on the final Saturday which would end up being 22/23 hours in total. We drove for a few hours and stopped in the
'fossil captial of North' Richmond (loved the english name i have to say! but definately not as posh as the Richmond i know!!!) We laughed at our little cabin joking that we would end up staying in something similar when we eventually reached our destination. Monique gets extensively car-sick so we had a few hairy moments when she had to get out and eventually we put her in the driving seat where she promptly hit a dead kangaroo and destroyed the bumper!! oops! we have definately had some laughs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Good job we all get on so well it was a veeery long journey. We stopped for fuel at several places with a HUGE assortment of bugs, grasshoppers and flying things all over the floors, pumps, toilets and god knows where else..it made you very jumpy when leaving the car i can tell you!!
Our second nights stop was at a roadhouse literally in the middle of nowhere but to our suprise, a girl from Sutton was working there, who lived on Driffold lane, went to fairfax and knows several of the same people as i knew from school and her school. Very bizarre meeting indeed!! Once again a small
cabin but by this time we were too tired to care much and Matt was very excited about his birthday!!!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.135s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 10; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0634s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb