Day 72

Lucinda - Ingham - Townsville

"Let's be kids again
Life was so simple then
Let's be kids, again......"

If we only had another week......

We left Lucinda at 8.30 to head further south towards Townsville. From there we were just going to see what eventuated - and that was nothing as it turned out.
We stopped at Ingham to fuel and them drove a short distance to the Tyto wetlands. Cayden has developed a big interest in birds this trip - he has always loved the birds of prey but it has extended into other birds too do we stopped to have a look. Too windy I suspect as there were not a lot around today.
From there it was another 100 ks onto Townsville. We arrived at lunchtime and so drove down the Strand to look at what the town had to offer - we were impressed too. Townsville is a lovely town, probably even nicer when the V8's aren't in town!! Crikey, people everywhere.
There is the largest living reef aquarium in the world located in Townsville too that we wanted to see but the afternoon was getting on.... So we decided to stay the night. We found a site at the caravan park right in town - unpowered of course - I was surprised there was a spot at all! We quickly drove to drop off the van - lucky it's really close to town - and headed to the Reef HQ.
We all had a great afternoon at Reef HQ Great Barrier Reef Aquarium seeing Sawfish and sharks and GT's and all the fish we'd seen snorkeling up the WA coast - Nemo's and Dory's aplenty and starfish and stingrays too. They had a lot of seahorses as well that kept us all mesmerised.
We also toured their turtle hospital where they rehabilitate turtles that are sick or injured. There were 5 green turtles in being cared for at the moment .
We left Reef HQ and did a drive by of the rest of the city centre and then up the 3ks to the top of Castle Hill which looks over the whole of the town below. - the full 360 view. We could see the whole V8 track complete with cars racing around testing ahead of the weekend. The airport , Strand and out to Magnetic Island are layed out in front of you. It's a popular walking/running/ cycling circuit too judging by the hundred or so people we passed driving up. Great place for a few drinks to watch the sunset! Pity we didn't pack any!
The monthly night markets were on tonight as well and we decided to have a wander about - they were packed too - wow people everywhere. I don't know where everyone came from as it was not nearly as busy there a few hours earlier! I'll have to put it down to Friday night with V8's in town and the monthly markets . All the pubs on the Strand were chockers!
The markets were a bit of a let down too - very expensive and nothing really that was of interest.
Tomorrow we'll go back into the lagoons in the strand for the kids to swim in - maybe even the water park too before hitting the road and heading for the Whitsundays! A couple of days there before home.... Ahhh home.
If only we had another week.......Or 12 even!