Townsville
We left Cairns on our first Greyhound bus trip, which was pretty exciting and extremely different to all previous travel experiences; the driver talks to you, they have rules like 'keep your seating area tidy' and 'don't put your feet across the aisle', and they show English movies. So we thought it was great and were surprised (and felt a bit superior) when we later met other people who complained about the service.We arrived in Townsville around 3pm and after some confusion about bus stops managed to locate my friend Jacqueline who had very kindly offered to have us to stay. It was really good to be staying in a real house rather than a hostel for a change, and the suburb (Aitkenvale) was very quiet and pretty. So quiet, in fact, that we rarely saw another person whilst there other than the occasional old-timer watering his lawn.
Townsville is reportedly quite large (a city) but like Cairns everything is very spread out. Combined with the lack of people this gives it quite a small-town feel; in fact the town centre by day reminded me of a western American town - we almost expected to see cowboys. By far the busiest area we found was the beach front (the Strand), which was mostly populated by people excercising. As in Cairns the threat of deadly jellyfish or stingers meant that swimming in the sea was impossible without a stinger suit on, so the beaches were pretty empty. There was one beach where a stinger net protected swimmers in a small patch of sea, but most seemed to prefer the 60s-built concrete 'rock pool'.
One of the main tourist attractions in Townsville is Magnetic Island, a large island half an hour away by ferry. There are a number of activities available including visiting a koala park and renting a 'moke', a small, toy-like car. However being cheap and feeling active we thought we'd do some of the walks in the rainforest. It was pretty hot but nothing compared to Malaysia, and the views were worth it although we didn't see any wild koalas. We finished our hike in Horseshoe Bay, the most beautiful beach on the island and a great place to relax for the afternoon.
Probably the other main highlight of Townsville for Chris occurred when we came across vouchers for a crazy golf course. It wasn't in the nicest part of town, as we discovered when we decided to walk back, but it was probably worth it to see Chris so overexcited. The main bonus for me was that I beat him by one point after 'an unjust 17th hole', despite being terrible at it. He didn't seem to take defeat too badly.
Unfortunately Jac had to work every day while we were there, but we did manage to do some things with her. She showed us the scenic river area near her house, where we discovered some more differences between home and Oz. We had taken bread to feed the ducks, but on reaching the water we found instead a large group of small river turtles waiting for us! The poor ducks seemed to be afraid of getting too close in case their feet got nipped, and so didn't get much of a look-in.
Jac also took us on a night out to see an old Aussie band called the Screaming Jets. They aroused unexpected patriotric feelings in us with their apparent hatred of Robbie Williams; not a person either of us ever saw ourselves sticking up for! It was fun to have a night out, and the trip home was enlivened by a pair of wild possums wobbling along a fence.
We left Townsville feeling very refreshed, having had our best sleep in months and been able to wash our clothes. I was sorry that we had to leave and go back to noisy dorms, but it was time to stop lazing and get back to being more active.
Emily
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