Tully, a mighty fine name.

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When looking into a route for Australia, we found out that there was a small town called Tully on the northern part of the East Coast. Now, even though I am officially a Goddard, I still have Tully roots and thus wanted to take a good look around Tully. And as I’ve recently inherited some Tully roots, I went along for the ride. Next year I’m taking Cate to Goddard (in Texas).

After not being able to contact any of the hostels in Tully for long enough to book a room for the next night on the silly payphones in Townsville, we decided to take the Greyhound from Townsville to Tully early the following morning then take another Greyhound bus from Tully to Cairns mid-afternoon the same day.

Tully is a small town with a population of about 3,500 people and is known as the wettest place in Australia. It seems particularly proud of this and has a large 7.9 metre high gum boot to represent the amount of rain that fell in the year 1976. As we approached Tully in the bus, the view was quite comical as we saw bright blue sky from one side of the bus, and on the Tully side, huge mountains with large grey clouds hanging low over it and the surrounding area. It was as though a child had drawn it. While we were there we experienced mainly bright sunshine and high humidity but for about 3 minutes, there was quite heavy rainfall, much to Matt’s satisfaction - he didn’t want to visit Tully without it raining. The other things that Tully is known for is it’s sugar cane industry, the large number of backpackers who stay there to work as banana pickers and the Grade 4 white water rafting river called, predictably, Tully River. We did toy with the idea of going rafting there but I put a dampener on that idea by searching for ‘River Tully deaths’ on google and the results put me right off. I didn’t want to drown after becoming trapped under a boulder on my holiday.

I don’t really know what I can add to this blog apart from describing the look of glee on Cate’s little face as we stepped off the bus and began our Tully tour, the delight on her face was heavily accentuated due to my nonplussed reaction at being in a town that is basically famous for being wet. We then began our Tully tour, walking down the streets (all three of them ... big place) and taking photos of anything with the word Tully in; Tully Bakery; Tully Drapery; Tully Seafood ... you get the picture. For a small town there was a remarkable number of shops and street signs with the word Tully on it (as you’ve probably realised by now from the barrage of photos accompanying this blog). So like an eager child on a school-trip, Cate snapped her way through the town, stopping every ten seconds or so having spotted another Tully photo opportunity.

So that’s basically all we did there. We walked around, took photos, had a cooling drink and read the Tully Times. Not much to see there but I had to go, didn’t I? And then we hopped back on our final Greyhound bus which took us on to Cairns.

Cate and Matt xx

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Comments

[Grandma Oldfield]

Tullyland
Hullo to you two, Have'nt been in touch for ages but you are'nt out of my thoughts. Life difficult but wont go into that, this is top say I just want to know how you two got up to the top of the welly boot. I dont see a stairway but maybe its at the back. Your blogs are so interesting and I love seeing your pics too. You are having a wonderful experience and you are obviously enjoying every minute. Keep on taking care, and I send my love as always. Byeeeeee Gma. x x x x x

[Matt and Cate]

Hi Grandma, there was a stairway inside of the boot, you can't see if from the photos no. Happy Easter! We will be in touch soon. Loving New Zealand although having a very quiet day today before catching the ferry to the North Island tomorrow afternoon. Take care, love Matt and Cate xxx