Advertisement
We rocked up to the Johnomob's 'Queenslander' home in Townsville on Friday after a fairly long drive from Cape Hillsborough National Park. We wanted to make sure we were in town by the weekend because they were all flying to Sydney on the following weekend for a wedding. So being here for the weekend meant that it was the best chance for us to see them considering some people still have to work and attend school during the week!
We were greeted with much merriment and were even successful in dragging Andrew home from his high-pressure job before 6 pm! Perhaps we need to visit more often. We all went to see Caitlin play basketball, had pizza for dinner and then drank and reminisced late into the night. Actually, we did that most nights - Anna even dragged out an old video of her and Alex's Débutante Ball one night - they attended St John's College together in Darwin a few, cough, years ago.
On Saturday morning it was Shona's turn at basketball while the rest of the weekend was spent relaxing, eating and drinking, with the children all playing nicely together (most of the time). Annelies and the
girls also developed a script for a play called 'Princess Illustrious' that the girls and Thomas performed for the adults on Sunday. Thomas took the pivotal role as the “legible” bachelor in the play - he is also pretty eligible, I think! It was a polished production and very hilarious.
On Monday we drove out to Doug (an ex-Darwin colleague of Mark's) and Meryl's place in Jensen, on the outskirts of town. They have a large rural block with chickens, turkeys, ducks, a bird aviary as well as an aquarium and pet rats, which Thomas spent a lot of the time playing with. But perhaps the pet that gained the most attention from us was Tycho, a Great Dane 'pup', about 12 months old. Tycho was named after the famous astronomer and alchemist Tycho Brahe, and not because he had a fetish for demolishing bras as a young puppy.
On Tuesday we drove up to Castle Hill and then went across to the Johnomob's holiday home ('Te-Nikau') on Magnetic Island for a very relaxing 5 days. About the only energetic activity we engaged in was the walk to The Forts, a WWII military facility. We also joined in
the fun of the famous Cane Toad Races at the Arcadia Hotel held every Wednesday night to raise money for the Island's junior surf lifesavers and kindergarten - see http://www.magnetictimes.com/article-2190.html. Here Thomas won a huge and delicious pineapple for being first to answer the question, “What is Queensland's highest peak?” The answer of course is Mount Bartle Frere.
We had a good look around the island, named by Captain Cook because of the apparent "magnetic" effect it had on the ship's compass as he passed the island when sailing up the east coast of Australia in 1770. People have since explored the general area of Magnetic Island with various instruments to discover what might have caused the effect that Cook reported, but nothing has been discovered. We visited Radical Bay, Florence Bay, Horseshoe Bay, Nelly Bay and Picnic Bay as well as swimming at the nearby Alma Bay. The the rest of the time we just read and watched a few DVDs and it felt like a real holiday on our holiday.
We arrived back in Townsville on Sunday and had a lovely BBQ dinner and evening with the Johnomob's neighbours, Michael and Carmel.
The Johnomob arrived
back from Sydney on Monday morning, but while Anna and Andrew chuffed off to work, the girls took the day off from school, so were able to spend some more time with us all.
We had a terrific time in Townsville and Magnetic Island and can't thank the Johnomob enough for the welcome and friendliness they (and their neighbours) gave us. Hopefully we can repay the hospitality somewhat when they visit Darwin later this year.
On Tuesday we headed up to Forrest Beach near Ingham to catch up with Alex's family neighbours from Darwin who have retired there.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.054s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 26; dbt: 0.029s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb