Townsville and onwards to Cairns

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It was great to see Mich and Phil again in Townsville and we had a fantastic weekend with them touring the Townsville area. Just offshore from Townsville is Magnetic Island where we spent a day touring the island. It's beautiful over there, very green with small narrow roads and lots of mini mokes driving around. Apparently Magnetic Island was named by Cpt Cook as his compass went a bit 'wonky' whilst he was passing by! The weekend was generally spent eating, drinking and messing around on the beach. On the Monday we all went up to a national park that had been recommended and spent the day chilling out around a waterfall - photos attached.

On the way up to Cains we also stopped off at a place called Paronella Park. We had been recommended to go there as it is Queensland's number 1 tourist attraction. The entire park was created back in the 1930 by a spanish pioneer (Mr Paronella) and has been neglected for many years so it's overgrown in places which adds to the charm. It was a hidden gem off the main highway and we loved it.

The journey up to Cairns took us through numerous sugar cane plantations and banana plantations. The whole area up there is devoted to growing either sugar or bananas it seems and there are cute little railways zig zag-ing through the fields that carry the crops during harvesting.

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