Archive for June, 2008

Our last night at Airlie Beach, Motley1 got the guitar out.  He is improving but not quite busker standard yet.  We went for a drive out to Shute Harbour where all the tours to the reef leave from. Very pretty.
Travelling up the Bruce Highway, we crossed the Burdekin Bridge which is more than 1 kilometre long.  Very impressive as are the mountains which surround you as you drive.  I was surprised by this as I don’t know what I expected up here but it certainly wasn’t mountains.
We arrived in Townsville, booked into the park and went for a drive around.
There is a huge waterfall just outside the middle of town which is lit up at night and looks pretty spectacular.
There are houses at the top of the hill and they have a great view out to Magnetic Island.
Townsville is a huge spread out town overlooked by this hill, called Castle Hill, and we went for a drive up there.  Here you can see just one view of the town which shows how big the place is.
This is Flinders Street, I’m sure you would never get a picture of Melbourne’s Flinders Street with this little traffic.
We visited the NQ Museum and Motley1 fearlessly turned his back on this inhabitant.
We really liked this little gazebo to be found near the Garden of Remembrance in the park.

Yesterday we went down to Giru to see about a job packing zuchinni.  We had a tour around the place and saw how they sort and pack mangoes and zuchinni and are hopeful that we will pick up some work here.

On the way back we checked out an Eco Caravan park, to find that in this instance Eco stands for “Dump”.  I don’t know that I would want to stay there even if we did find work and that means longer travelling every day.
One thing they did have in abundance was wildlife like these kangaroos complete with Joey in the pouch wandering around.

We have the Strand market tomorrow night until 10.00pm and then the Cotters Market in Flinders Mall on Sunday ..so we hope they will be really good markets.

Until next time..

Here we are again, officially in Winter now. 
It was 27 degrees here today, that’s my kind of winter !
As usual we had a change of plan when we left Bundaberg and we headed straight through to Mackay.  We stopped in Rockhampton for a quick look around and
then headed north yet again.
It was a fairly big detour to 1770 but I was detrmined to have a look.  It was beautiful.  I got out of the car and down onto that glorious sand and straight into the water
for a paddle.
We had our lunch at the beach and made up our mind not to stay the night but to head further north. All the way for miles all you can see is sugarcane on either side of the road. For those who have been up this way (like the 2jays) it probably sounds commonplace but I was amazed at the amount grown and we are only seeing a tiny amount.
Driving up the Bruce Highway, we had a look for a free campsite in Camps Australia 4 and saw there was one at Calliope River.  We pulled in there to have a look, drove over the causeway and were surprised to see about 30 other caravans and motorhomes were there already.  Despite this we were able to find a spot right on the riverbank, due to Motley1’s delusion that he is driving a Range Rover and not a Falcon. What a beautiful spot this is and we can highly recommend it to anyone.
Clean toilet block, campfire, friendly neighbours and the chance to catch a few fish for dinner. Not that we did, of course, so we made do with what was in the fridge.
Set off the next morning about an hour or more later than we had planned. (More chatting I’m afraid).  We arrived in Mackay quite late in the day and booked a drive thru site for the night.
Next morning we were on the road to Airlie Beach. 
We booked into a lovely park here but were surprised to find that it was too cool to use the swimming pool and that we were wearing sweaters in the evening.
The marina here is beautiful and the views out to the islands spectacular.

Had a stall at the market here in Airlie Beach on Saturday which was good, right on the water’s edge.
It was windy though and even a light sprinkling of rain to mar the beautiful setting.

Sunday morning, up early and off to the market in Bowen.  Again a windy day but no rain this time.
We had a good market and this would rate as one of the friendliest markets we have done.  Although,
I spent the morning being merciessly teased by the Lions Club about my accent when I said “Bookmark”.

They tried, unsuccessfully I might add, to get me to say book with an aussie accent.

We had today still at Airlie Beach to make some new stock but we are off tomorrow.  We have some
job interviews to go to starting from tomorrow so will let you know how we go.

To finish off..you’ve all heard of the “Big Things” around Australia..here is one we found yesterday.
So what do you think it is?  The Big …………….?