Good times and bad in Townsville

---

---

The first major town after Yeppoon is Bowen. There are hectares of tomatoes growing there and there's a farm where we always stop to buy a bag of Roma tomatoes and a bag of capsicums There are nice beaches at Bowen so we once more drove around the beaches before heading on..

We stayed overnight at Ayr. There's a lot grown at Ayr - sugar cane, and mangos are the main crops and, from reading tourist brochures, we found Ayr sits on an underground lake so water isn't a problem. Before we set up we drove about 20 kilometres to Lynch Beach. We had intended doing it last time we stayed here but Doug was told 'you drive 20 kilometres and then walk through a midge infested swamp' so we didn't bother. However, it was quite a nice beach, low tide again, a cut lunch was needed to get to the ocean but it wasn't too bad.

The lush cane and dark green mountains gave way to cattle country and quite barren rocky mountains as we neared Townsville. We were now in the Dry Tropics. There's a lot of roadwork going on entering Townsville, it's growing at such a rate and big roadways are being built. We love the waterfront of Townsville so we parked in the Strand and walked to the Rock Pool. We left there then and drove further down the Strand and parked to have a look at that area. The fig trees are amazing, huge with roots coming down from the branches into the ground There's a waterfall that falls beside the road, a water park, another pool, a marina, it's all quite lovely and beyond the beach to the water are islands - the closest, Magnetic Island, we visited last year.

We drove around the main part of the city, the ferry wharf, the casino, the entertainment centre, and then decided we'd go to the caravan park at Rowes Bay and check in. We'd already phoned and booked our site the day before and had paid a deposit, so were shocked when they told us they'd given away our site. There weren't any other sites available which meant we had to phone around after 3pm for somewhere else to stay. Eventually we got into a caravan park north of Townsville, not my favourite, we've stayed there before, but considering just how busy it is up north, we're lucky to get in anywhere. So annoyed at Rowes Bay, our Townsville stay was brief thanks to them!

I made four jars of pasta sauce with the tomatoes we'd bought in Bowen.

---

Comments

[MaryAnn Hayward]

We Can Identify.
Hi, we had a park in Skagway, AK, do that to us after we just came in from a train ride. It's not fun. I wrote a negative review on Trip Adviser. The rest of the journey sounds nice, & the photos are appealing.