Trip down the coast

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Today we took the train down to Townsville to start our journey down the Coast. We were actually quite sad to be leaving Cairns. Many backpackers we saw weren't that enamoured with the place - but we absolutely loved it, and it is a wicked base to so much stuff. Whilst we have loved the places we have gone to on our tips, we have both realised how much we like having stuff around us - decent places for food, a taxi when you need it, places to go out or go for a drink etc. Some of the more remote places we have seen have next to nothing!

Cairns is also growing rapidly - in the last few years the population has exploded from around 20,000 to just over 140,000. It is also sprawling up the coastline - linking all the funky beaches such as Palm Cove and Trinity Beach.

Most locals we have met described Townsville as Brownsville - so it's a bonus that we are only travelling through! We had to get the train down to Townsville - we couldn't hire a car to save our lives. We tried loads of places but they just weren't interested in doing any one way rentals - apparently next week kicks off the time when most people get into Cairns and then start driving down the coast to Brisbane and Sydney, so they end up with no cars left in the North. I don't do Buses, and we couldn't find a plane so a 7 hour train journey it was to be.

Thankfully we fluked paying only about 12 quid each for the train, so that was a bonus. The train was the Sunlander - a fairly famous rail journey should you choose "Queenslander Class" which travels between Cairns and Brisbane. That whole trip takes about 36 hours and is in a similar vein to the luxury found on the E&O.

I hope at this point I am beginning to give you an appreciation of how big this place is should you not already be aware. Queensland is similar in area to most of Western Europe for example!

On the train we had the pleasure and entertainment of sitting next to an Australian couple heading all the way down to Brisbane. They were so thick, couldn't ever hear one another and so each sentence was followed up with a chorus of "eh's" and "what's" and literally never listened to a thing they either said to one another or that was said over the tannoy. The woman also seemed to belch loudly every 5 minutes or so. It was absolutely hilarious. We have taken a paparrazzi style photo of them which we will get uploaded as soon as we can!

Suprisingly compared to the UK the price of food and drinks on the train was really cheap. They also have this mad drink over here which is called Milo. It simply seems to be Ovaltine mixed with an energy drink - but it's quite nice.

Now it was a good thing we didn't miss this train, they only travel every couple of days or so, and it's not suprising really as it isn't anything like the TGV - it seems to roll most of the way down the tracks!

Once in Townsville we grabbed a cab to the ferry point and got the high speed catamaran over to Magnetic Island.

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