Beach to beach in 8 hours...

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On the road again, relatively early, and heading south with a view to getting to Magnetic Island. I'm really cutting it fine on this trip as I've not got a whole lot of time to get to Brisbane for the date that I want to arrive there. The advice given to me today is to stop at the highest waterfall in Australia as my journey break at Ingham. Let's see how we get on...

The drive today is like yesterday in that you're driving through the middle of some huge mountains/hills, just minus the snow. All around are sugar cane fields, linked up by cane trains. Every half a kilometre is another cane railway crossing, so you've got to be properly on your toes here. So on the ball was I that I got to Ingham and missed the signs for the waterfall altogether. I decided to take the second best option - Joumara falls were listed in my book as one to see so I followed the signs there. Having driven down more unsealed roads, through half a foot of water at the foot of the waterfall...twice...I gave up the ghost when I saw I'd need to hike for a kilometre to get to the waterfall itself and that as we are only just coming into the wet season, there was every chance the falls would be less than spectacular. Not a good start.

I carried on and reached Townsville. What a beautiful city and exactly what I hadn't expected. Historic buildings restored to their former glory and a stunning coastline, complete with waterpark for the kids and barbecue areas for the grown ups. I could easily have stayed there to investigate further but I headed to the car ferry to take me to Magnetic Island. I was confused as to why there were so many cars parked at the ferry port - then less so when I was told it was AUD 180 to cross with a car, and AUD28 if I was a foot passenger. The idea of packing up the boot of my car was such that I threw all my toys out of the pram and drove off - Magnetic Island will need to wait for another day!

So Airlie Beach will be tonight's destination - the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands. It's a very very long drive, at times incredibly boring, and I'm beginning to wonder why I didn't get the Greyhound bus to take me rather than drive. I reached Airlie and went to the backpackers that I wanted to stay at - however a distinct lack of reception staff made me go elsewhere. Onto another, and I get a room with 6 beds, 4 other girls and one very lucky Dutch guy (he didn't think so at first but soon came around to the idea of being surrounded by women). Converted holiday apartments, around a pool, with a lagoon just over the road. Perfect. The fridge doesn't work and it's hot but who cares. I'm in the Whitsundays - it's time to relax after all that driving (best part of 1,000km already) and top up the fading tan...

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