Blogs from Townsville, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 30

The highlight of our stay in the top end is Kakadu national park, a area the size of whales encoumpasing Aligator creek and its catchment basen all the way to the sea. The park is one of the most diverse national parks in the world and therefore gets the increasingly common title of 'World Heratige area'. through the middle of the park a great wall and platau streaches for thousands of Kilometers, atop this platau is the aborigonal Arnhem lands, but beaneath lies Kakadu (with the exception of a few Uranium mines!). Numerous spectacular waterfalls run from atop the paltu down the sheer rock, into cool pools and Monsoon forest, while there are also huge Wetland areas, grassy plains, scrub bush, Euclypt forest, dry forest, and patches of rain forest. All with their associated wildlife, and ... read more

Well hello there people! Didn't stay in Mission as long as expected cause of weather and prospects of the next bus not coming through for about 4 days blah blah blah but am really glad i decided to go cause next stop was Magnetic Island or 'Maggie' as it is known to the locals and let me tell you that place is paradise!! Stayed in this gorgeous hostel right on the beach in these funky little beach huts and at last the weather got good!! Really good, which is exactly what you need when you are faced with a beautiful beach and the prospect of a couple of days to chill out on it!. We arrived early afternoon and went straight out on the Sea Kayaks. Such a laugh. I was in a double Kayak with ... read more

Summary: I've been struggling (not that much) against north, north-easterlies as I'm crossing largish bays to Townsville (where are the south-east trade winds that are suppose to blow day and night in this area this time of year?). Day 61 Abbot Point There's a large pier here where they load coal. I don't think one is supposed to land here, but, the place look deserted, and the beach looked good, so I did. When I took off (at 2 in the morning), I did see some activity on the pier. Day 62 Cape Upstart On landing, I met the "mayor" of Cape Upstart - Andy (he kind of watches over the (mostly deserted) vacation homes on the cape. He invited me up for a meal of grilled stakes and onions - that sure hit the spot. ... read more

We spent the day today down at the Reef HQ, Townsville's own aquarium which was awesome. It features a huge tank with hundreds of coral reef, fish and predators in including sharks, sting rays and green sea turtles. It was a stunning visit where I was able to take some pretty cool photos as hopefully you will agree. Mike... read more

Another early start this morning so that we could break out of the northern territory and enter Queensland, which we managed to do in just under 11 hours after having driven 900km from Mount Isa to Townsville on Queenslands east coast, where we stayed at the Adventurers Resort, a huge hostel with undercover parking, huge kitchen, friendly staff and over 300 beds available. Mike... read more