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We finally got around to leaving Cairns, we were there for 10 days or so but it's the place we've stayed in the longest so far. After a 6 hour bus ride we arrived in Townsville, the biggest city in North Queensland (We were treated to Kids Movie "Mighty Joe Young" on the bus, Jonny said it was an "epic" containing such key components as romance, suspense and....fairgrounds?!)
Townsville seemed like a ghost-town, everywhere was shut and we hardly seen another person in the city centre- at 4pm. It seems like such an aptly named place, its name conjures up images of some yocal town in the mid west or something, it does have that feel about it- Apparently it doesn't want to pander to the tourists in the way Cairns does and wants to keep a bit of authenticity. We had a wander through the memorial park - it had these interactive things you could press which then told stories of the war effort against the Japanese. Didn't get up to much on our first night, all knackered cos of the travelling.
Day 2 at Townsville was more productive, me and Bully visited the art gallery and then
Sprigsy in the Stocks
"But it wouldn't be cabbages i'd be throwing at him it would be hot bovril and gravel!" Alan Partridge we all went to the Museum- was really good, not boring at all. The museum had a few sections: one discussing the Barrier Reef and all the nature in the area, one showing the customs and passions of the local people, an interactive Science part, and a big exhibition about the eighteent century ship, Pandora. The museum is dominated by a huge model of the Pandora, which sunk just outside Townsville and has been subjected to four diving excavations.
Basicaly the Pandora was the ship sent from Britain in 1790 to find the mutineers who had cast adrift their captain, William Bligh- it is more commmonly known as The Mutiny on the Bounty. The main mutineer, Fletcher Christian (Played by Mel Gibson in one of the film versions) was from Whitehaven. The Pandora did catch up with the mutineers, however on it's journey back to England it hit some coral and began to sank, killing several of the crew and prisoners (some of whom were handcuffed in the prison cell, Pandoras box, and had no chance of surviving the sinking)
After soaking up some history, we headed to the Rock pool, basically a huge swimming pool by the
sea, complete with Barbecues and suchlike- you can't swim in the sea because it's jellyfish season. At night we had a bit of a goon fest (Goon is basically those cheap boxes of wine you can get, and is the backpackers drink of choice because it is cheap as.) Headed to a club which was set in one of Townsvilles oldest buildings, a bank that had ben built a couple of hundred years ago (Notice how tha even when we got out clubbing, we still manage dto soak up a good bit of Aussie culture and history)
Got up quite early the next day to check out of the hostel, too bloody early! We were on route to Magnetic Island, so called because when Captain James Cook (not to be confused with David James Cooke, everbodies favourite pint-sized Geordie!) navigated the island his compasses all started acting strange and he felt it was something to do with the island's magnetism- apparently it was just a coincidence though, anyways the name stuck.
We were in Magnetic Island for 4 nights, and despite the weather playing up a good time was had. A middle aged Aussie guy called Warren who
we met in Cairns worked at the hostel doing odd jobs and was to be seen at the bar for most hours of the day. The most significant part of our first day on Magnetic was undoubtedly watching the Chelsea v Man Utd game on TV, the whole pub just went silent when Rooney went down injured- of all the people for it to happen to?!? Reckon his fitness could make or break our World Cup, hopefully Stevie G will step up to the plate though if he misses out.
Anyways enough about fooball, day 2= Golf day! We went to the 9 hole golf course on the island, apparently it was where Greg Norman played his first round. I had a few teething problems on the first three holes, felt as if i was back at Swifts with Shaun back in the day (are we playing mulligans??), wasn't enjoying the par 5 at all. Things went pretty swimmingly from hole 4 to 9 in which time i managed to do a ripping drive down the 4th, i was so expecting it to pea roll about 3 yards before i hit it aswell.
Our hostel, Magnums, was ok but they are so tight- you have to pay extra for pillows and sheets?!?! The kitchen is shockingly small for the size of the place anorl, they basically try and force you to eat at their retaurant. A lot of time was spent chilling by the pool and making trips to the nearby convenience store for microwaveable lasagnes and stuff- Jonny seems to fancy every middle aged woman that works in the convenience stores we go in, we end up staying in them for about 40 minutes whilst Jonny makes small talk asking advice on how long to put stuff in the microwave for!
On our final day in Magnetic Island we went to do one of the trail walks which led to some old forts used as lookout points during WW2. Me and Will walked to the start of the trails (About 40 minutes away) but Jonny and Bully decided to almost kill themselves by cycling, it was up hills all the way, felt like they both deserved a polka dot jersey at the end. The trail walk was pretty cool, never seen any Koala Bears though, or Death Adders- thank God! We also visited the beach where we were spotted by the girl who lived next door to Bully in Halls in first year Uni, as Jonny would say, "Small World!"
Tommorow we are heading to Airlie beach, about four hours south, we've got a Danish girl who we met at Magnums, Henrietta, in tow with us for a while cos she's going there aswell- Jonny got talking to her first by asking her whereabouts in Australia she was from! "Denmark!" she replied- Her accent is pretty hard to distinguish though in fairness to JJ.
Till next time, Mike
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Rob
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Tour de force
I'm absolutely thriving on that Tour de France reference Michael. Congratulstions on nicking the Atletico numpties league title from Dave at the last minute. Last week, when asked by a journalist about the way Smudger's scorchers had closed the gap, he exploded and began ranting, "I'd love it if we beat them!"