Back on the airwaves

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Day 86 - Alligator Creek to Townsville

Happy Birthday Laura! Not that she’ll read this but Miss Laura Shand, a very Happy Birthday to you! We hope you and the Purple Shorts team are doing well!!

There was a very strange event at Alligator Creek this morning, spots of rain and wind! We put the non appearance of the Blue Winged Kookaburras for their scheduled manic laughter set down to this out of season occurrence and although we were sad to be leaving the camp, if the weather was going downhill then it was a good time to move on. We had a funny five minutes with the self registration box yesterday, there was seemingly no bottom to it and although I’d wedged our form inside when another camper pushed theirs in they both fell out onto the ground below! The ranger normally comes at 7am but not this morning and we were on the road by 7.40am so we’ve kept the payment form with us until the next permit site we come to and we’ll put it in their slot instead!

The journey to Townsville, our chosen destination, doesn’t take long and we’re soon in the mist of the reasonably busy rush hour! It’s time to charge everything else up and get a decent shower so it’s caravan park time and since the Big 4’s aren’t anywhere near the town or the sea front we’re heading for Rowes Bay Caravan Park instead. The nice lady on reception tells me that they’ve no powered sites available and there’s already a waiting list of 8 in front of us! It’s no wonder, the outlook is lovely and there are no other caravan parks along this section at all. Oh well, Big 4 it is then although even one of them is full so we head north to their Woodlands Park. It’s a bit off putting when we arrive to find it’s right next to a brand new highway flyover but they pitch us as far away from the road as possible! The facilities are excellent, the best we’ve seen from a Big 4 by a comfortable mile, the laundry machines are all new and only $3 and the tumble dryer is only $3 for 60 minutes. Un-heard of! The toilet block is uni-sex and you have individual bathrooms with your own toilet, shower and sink - brilliant idea! We’re impressed!

The washing is on and the first load is hung out to dry. Next on the list for today is to sort out the UHF radio once and for all. Despite Autobarn Mackay saying that it was all working, it doesn’t, so we head off to Autobarn Townsville for a chat and to find out the cost of a new radio. When we get there we briefly explain the situation and the prior involvement with Autobarn, the chap is helpful but we leave to consider our options and check prices elsewhere. We head over to a UHF radio specialist, Olbis, and chat to the guy we find behind the desk. He immediately condemns our radio repeating the comment that others have made ‘Bloody hell that’s an old one’ but also adds ‘You’re never going to talk to anyone on that thing it’s just a basic CB!’ Well that explains a few things!!! He quotes us $400 for a new one, fitting, new aerial etc so again we leave to consider our options, whilst choking on the thought of it costing quite that much! A quick trip to Dick Smiths, another electrical wholesaler, proves that the Autobarn models and costs are as competitive as we’re going to find so back we go. This time we remove our sad little CB radio so we can check the connections and find that the Autobarn Mackay team have glued the unit to the inside of the compartment!! We’ve somehow got to remove the unit in order to fit a new one so, hoping that they’ll help us we wander inside the Townsville branch, unit and glue in hand! Brett, the store manager, is so embarrassed by the job Mackay have done that he immediately jumps to our aid and with some patience from one of his colleagues our unit is released from the glue leaving the compartment free for a new radio. We find one listed as reduced from their pricing on the front of the cabinet and sure enough they’ve got it in stock. Brett then even agrees to fix the correct power connection onto our wires so that we can fit the radio ourselves - what a star. When it came to paying for the new radio the price tag showed nearly $100 more than the reduced price list had but Brett honoured the hand written price list and with a bit of jikery pokery from Mr Howells when we got back to camp we now have a working UHF radio. Breaker, Breaker, Copy, Over! Beautiful! We’ll be on channel 18 most of the time but listening in to the truckers channel 40 for all the speed camera locations and any road closure updates and of course to check for road trains stuck behind us!

The next job we’ve been dreading for a while, it means a phone call to the car yard where we purchased our vehicle. They should have paid the bill for the stamp duty owing on the car. This was part of the agreement between us and them and they told us at the time “Yeah, if you even get a letter just ignore it because we’ll sort it for you”, but they haven’t. We’ve spoken to Vic Roads and they’ve not received the payment so we need to chase it up and hope that it’s just an oversight. We ring, speak to Marcus at Charles Jansen 4x4 and explain the situation. He takes our number saying he’ll call us back in 5 minutes. 6 hours later and the phone hasn’t rung yet. It will be disappointing if the man and his boss don’t keep to their word so we live in hope that he’ll phone tomorrow with good news. Anyway, we flatly refuse for this to get us down or wind us up, so, moving on ….

Our new thing for today is our experimental Mozzie repellent! Nothing is working at the moment and we’re being eaten continuously by the heinous creatures so we mix up some baby oil and dettol which we’ve been told should do the trick!! It smells a bit but we hope it works! We’ve also treated ourselves to some Stop Itch before we drive each other crackers with all the scratching!

By this time it’s 4pm but there’s still a bit of daylight left so we head off to Castle Hill, a red rock monolith with panoramic views of the city. We get to the base of the hill and find that the local fitness fanatics are out in force and already puffing and panting their way to the top. We join in the very steep, 2.9km climb and are pleasantly surprised how well we do. There’s not much puffing or panting from us at all. We get to the top having overtaken quite a few of the others and then we park up and open the car doors! What a great view! Ha Ha, there was no way we were doing that walk this evening, we had a dinner date with a BBQ at Rowes Bay to get to before dark. Maybe tomorrow we’ll do it, Darryl says not to count on it though! The views are fabulous from the top and we learn that quite a few of the locals watched the recent V8 Supercars fixture from here as the track can clearly be seen in the distance below! There’s a 360 degree view of the city and a splendid view of Magnetic Island which is where we’re going tomorrow. We watch as more and more joggers, walkers and cyclists make it to the top of the hill and some even bring their tired dogs too! In an attempt to fit in I run around the lookouts, at least I tried!

Rowes Bay is only a short distance from Castle Hill and when we get there the sun is just going down so we need to get the BBQ going quick smart for our dinner of Chicken Fajitas! Gorgeous, very tasty and so easy on the BBQ!

Next stop is the ferry terminal in an attempt to know where we need to get to in the morning and whether we can park close by. Of course we can, there’s a car park at the ferry terminal and it’s only $5 for the day which is good. It’s $29 return per adult and you can take bikes although talking to a lady waiting for the next ferry, the island is a bit rugged and the roads are a bit up and down! Should be entertaining then!

And that was today! We managed to catch up with Mum and Dad K on Skype although the connection was really weird so we typed messages to each other instead! We were going to ring a few other people today but the phone box at the camp is out of order but we’ll try and find an alternative during the week when we’re out and about.

Hope all is well with everyone, speak to you soon

Dar and Sar

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