Rain and the return to Townsville


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July 6th 2010
Published: July 6th 2010
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We’re back in Townsville after our four day mini-holiday event up the coast to where the road ends at Cape Tribulation. We had completely poxy-luck with the weather. Unbelievable really. For the first week here in Townsville, the weather had been mostly lovely every day. Antony can’t have much time off work - in fact, these four days are more or less his only chance to take time off until September. So what happens? It’s either as gloomy as a nun’s arse, or its pissing down for each and all of the four days! See if you can predict what the weather was like when we got up this morning back in Townsville and Antony had to head back to work! I’ll let you know before the end of the blog, I promise!

We did our best to ignore the gloomy weather on our Mini-Holiday by taking extensive walks, drives, and tours trying to dispel the grim grayness. We didn’t take a tour out to the Barrier reef - the sea looked brown, the wind was hectic, and without sun it would have been as much fun as raw liver at a vegetarian’s party. I’ve already described our arrival in Cairns, a teeming family holiday Mecca. I mentioned that we drove up to Cape Douglas, the road curling up between the sea and the fields of giant sugar Cane. I’m sure on a typical blue-sky day, this would have resembled a tropical version of the California coast, but today it resembles the estuary of the River Mersey, where it tips out, in a thick brown sludge, into the North Sea. The only real difference is that the Mersey estuary is always brown, no matter what the color of the sky!

Cape Douglas has a long four mile beach along which we walked. (The next day Antony decided to kick-start his running by jogging the whole beach!) We found a neat hotel run by Fred Eggers, an ex-pro soccer player (he played for AZ Alkmaar, in Holland). We spent Saturday night slurping beers on the lively main street. The Germany/ Argentina game was set for midnight Saturday, with the Spain game due to kick off at 4:00am. I managed to stay awake for the Argentina game - which was a good game, but I didn’t make the second game -I had to content myself with early morning replays of the key moments in the game. I hope the Germans beat the Spanish, and win the whole thing. I think the Germans are the most exciting team in the competition and deserve to win it on the basis of their performances so far. In other words, Uruguay are almost certain to win it all!

Sunday dawned as did Monday: thick, gloomy, low clouds, a strong wind with bouts of drizzle chucked in just to complete the melancholy feel. We cancelled our reef tour then set off driving to the far North. Every mile North makes the vegetation thicker and wilder, more and more tropical rainforest. We had taken a lovely and evocative rainforest walk in Mossman’s Gorge in the afternoon on drizzly Saturday. Today we took our walks along rain forest boardwalks. It was quite lovely inside the forests, with the rain actually helping the atmosphere!
There’s a cable ferry across the Daintree river before the wildly steep and curvy road up to Cape Tribulation. This rain forest is a World Heritage protected area, supposedly the oldest untouched rain forest in the World. We stopped for multiple walks, as well as a beach walk at the Cape itself. We didn’t allow the gloom to spoil the day - but I was aware that this would likely be my one and only visit to this area, and that it was quite a pity that this would be how my memory of the place would be shaped. Ah well. What can you do? All the walks were fun and extensive enough to be rewarding no matter what the weather.

Back in Cape Douglas at ‘cloudset’, for another nice meal in town - Red Emperor fish freshly caught on the reef - fiendishly expensive, of course. We settled into the probability that we would be cancelling the reef tour on Monday and weaving our way back through the continuing rain to Townsville. Antony continues picking up the bills for almost everything, which is very kind of him, especially because this place is poisonously expensive with the exchange rate where it is and frankly beyond my budget. Monday dawned ugly and nasty, so after a breakfast we started back, stopping for pleasant beach walks at Palm Cove, and an afternoon on the Skyrail up to Kuranda village, and another rainy forest walk before heading back through heavier showers the 450 kilometers back to Townsville.

Today dawned - you’ve guessed it - without a cloud in the sky and warm. It makes the last four days seem like some sort of gray, surreal dream. Now I’m back to planning the next move: The World Cup Semis are coming up, also, a large weekend event involving car racing in Townsville and the World Cup Final. Eventually, I’ll have to start planning heading up towards Darwin. If I’m going to the Barrier Reef I’m going to have to do it over the next few days, possibly on a tour from here. Given the fantastic expense of the place, I should probably consider spending another week based here in Townsville before heading off into the rest of the country!

I see that everyone is enjoying a bit of a ‘heat wave’ in Boston - I can’t say I’m missing that - however, looking at the weather today in most of Australia, the maximum temperature was about 60 degrees! Gulp!
What have I done?
See you on the flypaper!



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7th July 2010

Great to get your updates. Sorry to hear about your dreary weather those days but still sounds and looks quite amazing. Just think you were able to spend some time with Antony and he with you while traveling . It is also nice to hear that he is helping out with the bills since it is so expensive there as you say. Hey, that's what family is for, they help each other other when needed if possible. Of course the nice weather returns always when you get back from your destination. Hope you get to the Barrier Reef. Have fun and stay safe. Lucille
9th July 2010

Lucille
Antony is an extremely generous brother, it's true. I wouldn't be able to be here if it wasn't for his generosity, simple as that! It's really great to spend this time with him!

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