Townsville to Airlie beach

We arrived in Townsville after a short drive from Saunders beach, and went down to the Strand. There were 5 or 6 little beaches along the coast, we enjoyed topping up our tan and doing nothing! I was going out of my mind a little as we had nothing to do in the evenings, and I am not very good at sitting around and relaxing (like my father!), so we took Carlos the camper into town and I bought Richard Branson's autobiography and a camping book of the East coast which tells us where all the free camp sites are. That evening we drove up Castle hill which overlooks Townsville and Magnetic island, with amazing views. Although we felt bad driving up as it seems like most people in Townsville walk up there for exercise in the evenings (a hard going climb)! That night we drove round, got lost for a bit and eventually found our home for 2 nights, the lap of luxury, a BP service station, with saunas swimming pools and casino's NNNOOOTTT! They had fat truckers, a few other vans, but it was safe and only $1 to use a hot shower, lush!

The next day we wanted a taste of the outback so we drove 150km to Charters towers which used to be the 2nd largest town in Queensland and was known for its gold mining and everyone there was so rich that the place was nicknamed The World as they had everything! We enjoyed learning the history of the town and got an idea of the overwhelming size of OZ. We went to a view point in the town and there were hills, fields and mountains (outback) as far as the eye could see in every direction. We are sooooo glad we have 24 hour breakdown cover as you would be stuffed out here, although Carlos is running very well and am still loving driving him!

We then headed back to Townsville for the afternoon, we went to the free swimming facilities down at the Strand, Mishee enjoyed her puzzle book and I was getting inspired by Branson, what a legend! The great thing about Queensland, is that it gets 300 days of sunshine a year and we didn't see a cloud for 6 days. It must be crazy hot out here in the summer! People in Queensland are really friendly and always say Gooday!!

After our 2 nights at the BP garage we drove to another service station stop about 25km south of Townsville, because we hadn't been paying for campsites we had not been able to charge anything, but here was a truckers lounge with powerpoints. We cracked open some beers (VB sponsor of the OZ cricket team) so that was a great free stop. The next day we headed to a wildlife sanctuary called Billabong, saw some fascinating animals and got really up close with crocodiles (mishee held a baby croc), learnt about the most poisonous snakes in the world, this one snake had enough venom to kill 100 humans with one bite! And they are indigenous to the OZ bush! You can also hold snakes but me and mish whimped out, they gross me out! We also stroked a koala, and hugged a big fat wombat which was a gorgeous animal with lots of character, this was a small one apparently they get twice as fat as this, but can still run up to 40km an hour! We wanted to put her in Carlos and take her with us! We also loved the Koala bears and managed to see a couple awake as apparently they sleep for 80% of the day and eat for the other 20%!

Around 4pm we headed down to another town called Ayr and pulled up at a free night stop, this was one of the better ones as it had free hot showers, bbq's and nice toilets, and for some reason me and mish seem to sleep better in Carlos than anywhere else! We woke the next morning and headed to Bowen, where we visited the site where Australia was filmed and then went to the gorgeous horseshoe bay and chilled out. Bowen was a bit hicksville for our liking so we decided to drive on to Airlee beach, where we can visit the Whitsunday Islands and will probably spend a few days. But there are no free campsites, goddamm it!!

Still loving the camper and OZ, peace, Ads and Mish xx