Townsville to Airlie Beach

Day 23 - Townsville to Airlie Beach

Airlie Beach

Sunday, 14 August 2011

Today we left our dodgy motel room and went looking for some breakfast. It was Sunday morning and so we decided to go for the works at Sizzler. It's basically eat as much as you can of everything for breakfast. We didn't disappoint you and ate our way through cereals, fruit, several eggs, half a pig, a couple of loaves of bread and a pile of pancakes drizzled (drenched) in maple syrup with ice cream on top. Being a caring dad, I even asked for a doggie bag so I could take some out to the rest of the family who were waiting in the car.

After we had eaten to the point of gluttony, we left and had a drive into Townsville, which looked a lot nicer in the daylight and without the stress of looking for accommodation. We found the site of the old hospital which is still there but empty and derelict and I treated the family to a few nostalgic and carefully selected anecdotes about my time there. As you can imagine, they love my stories of the old days although I'm always surprised they can hear me with their iPod earphones in, apparently it helps.

After that we set off for Airlie Beach, about 250 km south. It was a straight drive, navigation isn't difficult as there is basically a choice of one road and you can either go north or south. We listened to Rolf for a while (I am allowed it on once/day) and then to iPod music which it seems can come through the car's wireless, marvellous! The journey was uneventful, although we did stop at a dead kangaroo as Brolga had said we should check it's pouch to make sure there isn't a live joey in there. Thankfully it was male and no checking was necessary as I had been elected as the checker. When Jess got back in she did have a stick insect attached to her which we have added to our list of creatures spotted.

We arrived in Airlie at about 3 o'clock and went to the tourist information to enquire about accommodation and to book a trip out to The Whitsundays tomorrow. We took a drive out to the accommodation she had arranged for us but it was located just outside the car park of a big supermarket, not what I had envisaged. We set off in search of something else and dropped in at a couple of campsites that have cabins for rent and after rejecting one for being too smelly, we have found a lovely cabin at The Island Getaway Holiday Park. It's like a little home from home and I am currently sitting on the verandah writing this blog. We negotiated a pretty good rate too so we're all happy. We've been shopping and the girls are tucking into nachos while I write this and then we're having beef in black bean sauce. We also went through a drive-thru bottle shop which is an off licence that you drive through. We filmed the whole thing, explaining that we don't have these in England, and even asked the girl to put our 6-pack in the boot so that we got the full drive-thru experience.

Tomorrow is our trip to the Whitsundays, we are going to Hamilton Island for a few hours then on to Whitehaven Beach. The forecast is good and so we should have a good day, I'll let you know!

	Townsville's Old Hospital [Map]		Stick Insect [Map]
	Drive-thru Bottle Shop [Map]

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