More Adventures in Townsville

Well this morning is my last day in Townsville, and it's been a blast! Irene's making lunch in the kitchen, and Janet and I are shortly going to be catching the train inland to Mount Isa, where we will be exploring for the next week or so. It takes 24hrs to get to Mount Isa by train, and god only knows what sort of internet access we'll have once we're there, so this may be my last blog for a while.

The last three days have been busy! On Friday, we were all feeling a little bit pooped after having spent the entire day on Thursday at the Billabong Sanctuary. So Irene took us on a bit of a driving tour around Townsville, starting with the big dam and spillway at the edge of the city. The earth embankment that they've built up around one side of the pre-existing lake is HUGE! The dam provides Townsville with all its drinking water, and apparently there's enough stored there that the city could survive for three years if the rain stopped falling today. I don't think many places in Australia can boast such a large water supply. Unlike everywhere else we've been, Townsville's water restrictions are quite relaxed.

After checking out the dam, we headed down to the river and walked along it for a ways, enjoying the fine weather and watching for birds. Irene took us to a community centre by the river where there was a neat series of outdoor pools/lagoons, a fun "Eco House" which had great displays on how to live sustainably, and a very, very random modern art gallery. None of us understood the art installations we saw. We were especially puzzled by the cartoon that was playing which showed scenes of a Japanese girl dancing, alternating with a giant green plant monster bombarding a city with flowers. Odd.

We headed home mid-afternoon for a nap, we were that tired! After dinner, we headed back to downtown to walk the other half of The Strand that we hadn't managed to see the day before. The entire Strand is beautiful and so well planned out. We really liked the interactive "talking" memorials for ANZAC Day and the Battle of the Coral Sea, where recordings explained the significance of each monument. Jen and I also really, really liked the FREE kids water park- it's very similar to that bucket-topped jungle-gym like thing found at Canada's Wonderland, with the big difference that it didn't cost anything to get in!

After the sun had set, Irene drove us to the top of Castle Hill, the HUGE hill (only a little shy of officially being a mountain) that overlooks Townsville. From the lookouts on its top we could see the city spread in all directions. It was beautiful.

Yesterday, our plans to visit the Great Barrier Reef having finally been thwarted because of the weather, Jen, Janet and I decided to try snorkeling at Magnetic Island, which is 20 minutes off the coast from Townsville. We caught the ferry out early in the morning. We had to rent "stinger suits" for all of us, because of the danger of deadly jellyfish in the waters! The suits were lycra and covered us to the neck, to the wrists, and to the ankles. Sexy they were not. I'm really glad I didn't bring my camera on this day trip (again, nowhere safe to leave valuables while we were out swimming!). Imagine how silly we all felt with them on... but it was nice to know that wearing the suits minimized the chances of us being stung. Some of the jellyfish in the waters here can kill humans! (Stop worrying, mom, I've been told they're quite rare at Magnetic Island!)

The snorkeling wasn't all that great, as there's been so much rain in the last months that everything's been stirred up underwater too. The first bay we tried, the water was so turbid we couldn't see our hands in front of our faces until we got a good way out. We did find some relatively clear water where we spotted lots of different types of corals and fishes, but they were hard to see. And that was actually the best snorkeling of the day! The second bay we tried, there was nothing to see at all. And then when we decided to catch the bus once more and try one final bay, we discovered that we'd just missed the bus and there wouldn't be another for an hour! So in the end we ran out of time and had to head back to the ferry landing.

In fact, getting back to the ferry was a bit stressful. The bus we caught to where we'd rented the suits was packed full, and the driver stopped letting people on! We were rather worried that when we went to catch the bus from the dive shop to the ferry terminal that we'd not get on, so instead we walked the 1.5kms to the terminal. The only trick... the track turned out to be straight up a small mountain and down the other side! And me without my knee braces, in wet shoes. Not fun. But we did survive!

Jen, Janet and I took Irene out for dinner last night to one of her favourite restaurants, which turned out to be a Malaysian buffet place. MMMMM. Pork balls. Ice cream. Prawns. I love buffets!

And unfortunately I'm going to have to leave the story off there for now... lunch is ready and we've got a train to catch in half an hour, so ta for now! I'll write again when I get a chance.