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Published: September 26th 2012
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Old hotel in Home Hill
The Malpass Hotel. A relation of our friends Jacqui and Ernie Malpass? At Airlie Beach before moving on we checked out their great free pool complex complete with sandy beach and sandy floor with a pool for toddlers, a shallow one for the older kids and then a deeper one for the swimmers. Very impressive and very popular. It may be a tourist town but still a great place to spend a few days.
We headed north again, stopping at a camp area this time that had free hot showers! Home Hill only has a population of 2,500 so needs as many tourists/travellers to stop as possible to help the local economy. We had a sugar cane train bowl on past several times on one side of us and the main road with heavy trucks on the other but have no complaints as we still managed to sleep.
Next stop was Townsville and we have found such a wonderfull camp site that we will be spending 3 nights here. We are right on the beach and it also has a shower be it only a cold one. That again is not a problem as the temperature is 30 degrees with the ocean at 24 degrees today.
Yesterday we visited the
Museum of Tropical Queensland and spent a long time at the exhibition about the shipwreck of the British ship Pandora which was sent to Australia to round up the mutineers from Captain Bligh's "The Bounty". It showed the mutineers shackled in chains below deck
with some of them totally naked. The next part was lifestyle replicas
of them trying to get out of the sinking ship with the naked men
appropriately with their backs to the glass and their fronts to the back
wall. However one small kid on looking up shouted out "Look mum, I can
see his nuts!" much to everyone's amusement.
Today we visited the Reef HQ which is similar to Kelly Tarlton but is in fact a man made reef with Hammer Head Sharks, Tiger sharks, Groupers and other large fish in it plus many beautifully coloured small ones plus heaps of coral. Well worth a visit. We then went for a 20km bike ride which would have been hard in this heat except for an off shore breeze that was blowing. It is still quite windy tonight but far from cold.
There are stingers in the water from now on so swimming is only recommended in the cordoned off areas of the Townsville beach where the stinger nets have been put up. They even warn about salt water crocodiles in the water so all this stunning turquoise water and most of the year it is not safe to swim in it.
Tomorrow we are off to do some more hiking and possibly the Airforce Museum which has been recommended to us as Townsville played quite a part in World War II.
Our "Kruizing Kiwiz" sign still has people tooting as they pass us and pulling into camp sites sees fellow kiwis and others coming over for a chat which is really welcoming.
Heading further north on Thursday towards Cairns but no particular place even looked at yet
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