Blogs from Townsville, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 25

Thanks to Amanda and Derek's influence, we are now more adapted to the time difference. We can now sleep in until 8:00, and don't have to go to bed until 9:30. Amanda and Derek live right along the river, so Vlad and I headed out for a riverwalk, where we saw heaps and heaps of river turtles. They are used to being fed, but sadly, we had no food for them. Luckily, Vlad improvised and we have learned that river turtles do not eat yellow flowers, purple flowers, leaves or acorns. After a while, we came across a wier, home to a "freshie" (freshwater crocodile). We decided to walk across the weir in hopes of spotting this freshie out sunbathing. When we got across the weir, we noticed a big sign, declaring it a public offence ... read more

I crossed the Tropic of Capricorn sometime during the night on the over night train. I left Brisbane at 6 pm and arrived at Townsville 18 hours later. I slept quite well on this swanky train, the Tilt Train. We had seats, not sleeping compartments, but they tilted back quite far. Each seat had a television, and several channels. One channel was a live camera from the front of the train, you could see where you were going. And meals were served to our seats. Nice and wide seats in the carriage, 2 together, the aisle, and one on the other side, that was my seat - an aisle and a window seat - it's the same seat. Nice. Townsville is a mix of old buildings from the turn of the last century, including my ... read more

June 29. Townsville, get comfortable. June 30. Racing. Around islands, rocks and marks. Magnetic I, Bay Rock, Cordelia Rocks, Herald I, Rattlesnake I, Yabulu, Middle Reef. Clear day. Light wind early then reefed main and even dropped it entirely. Wind slackened main back up. Sighted dugong! All good til last leg wind failed. Slow, slow to finish at 7:30pm, dark.... read more

Every year for the past 16 years, Townsville has held its annual folk festival on the Queens birthday long weekend. It is held 40 kms south of Townsville at Mountain View Lake Eco Park which is a small caravan park beside some beautiful hills and a lovely lagoon. You can camp in unpowered sites, but need to bring all your own camping gear, shower and toilet facililites are situated in the main festival area, with showers of the very cold variety and basic toilets provided. There were some great food stalls, including the Hare Krishnas, Taste of Thailand, Ice creams, Coffee, Chai Tea and Biscuits, Hamburgers, Juices and more coffee. There were the usual market stalls of clothing and associated jewellery, and bits and pieces. The festival starts on Friday night and goes until Monday ... read more

G'day! After a relaxing last night in Airlie Beach where we had gone out for pizza with a load of girls that had been on our boat, Suze, Brenda and I were feeling pretty good when we got off the Greyhound at Townsville and caught the 20 minute ferry over to Magnetic Island. We had booked into the Base hostel there which was the same chain I'd stayed in at the start of my Oz adventures in Melbourne and more or less my local throughout my time there, so I was really looking forward to getting there. First impressions showed that it was not quite as nice as the hostel in Melbourne but most of the space was taken up by a bar that overlooked the beach so I wasn't complaining! We settled in, had a ... read more