Townsville and surrounds

After leaving behind our spanish mansion, we spent a few days exploring in and around Townsville. It was beautiful driving through lush green canefields on one side of the road and banana plantations on the other.

The kids thought the wide arms
made the gumboot bigger!

Suzy Q in the canefields

We added a golden gumboot to our 'big things' collection in Tully, although it was neither as big nor as golden as we were expecting. It was erected to celebrate (?) Tully being the wettest town in Australia, but we also heard that about Babinda and Innisfail on the way through, so it's obviously a hotly contested title!

Ingham provided a very well done visitor centre linked to the local natural wetlands where we went birdspotting for a few hours and were able to camp.

The tables are turned on the wide arms in this one!

The Frosty Mango cafe on the highway provided us with a lovely fresh pineapple and an awful,
un-drinkable cup of coffee. Luckily my mood was improved upon discovering Little Crystal Creek in Paluma Range National Park, a pristine stream with a series of waterfalls. We boulder-jumped upstream and down to view all the different pools and the water lived up to it's crystal-clear name.

Road over the top of Little Crystal Creek

In Townsville we spent all afternoon on the beautiful waterfront. A vibrant and diverse area, it includes public art and an old army barracks redesigned as a precinct from which to appreciate the landscape, military history and Aboriginal history all in one place. There's also a lovely lagoon pool right next to the ocean (to minimise the risk of irukandji jellyfish stings of course).

A visit to Reef HQ Aquarium finished off our Townsville stay and then it was on to Home Hill where we are camping tonight at a great free area provided by the local council. We've just broken the world shower record with all five of us managing to beat the five minute timer on a single shower. No mucking around these days, the kids know the value of free hot water!