We're on the road again.

Stopping for a night at Cardwell at our prime location on the Esplanade thanks to another cheecky nights free camping.

Cardwell poem

Well well well

We wanted to go for a stride, but due to the rain we went for a ride.

Along the foreshore we did glide.

At the informantion centre we met a bizar guide,

To our dismay he didn't encourage us to stay.

Hinchinbrook Island he said don't go so we decided we wouldnt, oh what a blow.

(the largest island national park in the world would have been worth seeing)

5 mile don't go for a swim as there is a crocodile, here there was no signs for a croc so we stayed for a little while.

Back to the bus on the esplanade we illegally parked for the night hoping the police would not come and give us a fright.

The next day we did the short 25km Forest Drive around the back of Cardwell. First to the lovely waterfall and then onto Spa pool, where we all felt like a nudie swim, nothing like going with your gut feeling; we all had a refreshing beauitful dip. Out just in time before some locals arrived.

Then onto Townsville in the heavy rain we spent the night at our BP Resort and dicovered a few leaks in the blue bus. The next day we meet Jo's cousin Margaret in South Townsville who kindly offered us to park at her house. This was a perfect location in a quiet, wide street near town and The Strand. We watched the AFL footy at the Metrecon Hotel but a sad result with WCE losing by 3 points, Archie was devo!!

On Sunday morning we headed off to Magnetic Island putting our ute and swags on the ferry. We explored the west side of the island and had a great day on the beach swimming and exercising. We managed to catch two descent sized gummy sharks off the beach and a large colourful toad fish off a jetty.

We had fish and chips for entree on the beach at sunset on Horseshoe Bay ,It was spectactular, and then some Thai at our backpackers where we had set up our swags on the lawn.

Monday morning Fidge, Lotte and Archie did an animal tour. This was very active in holding various animals. These all included feeding a black cockatoo by our mouths, having a frill neck lizard sit on Archie's head, holding blue tonged lizards, baby fresh water croc, Carpet python and lastly Lotte holding Matilda a koala. Tim did a four km bush walk to the "forts" - a very pictueque walk to some military canon look outs, he saw a Koala too. We spent the afternoon on the beach and did some coral reef snorkelling. The weather was divine and we absolutely love Magnetic Island. We took the ferry back to townsville and watched a display of military force where 9 helicopters were out over the harbour doing some training.

On tuesday we caught up on some school work back at the bus in South Townsville and then went on a long bike ride up The Strand and some lookouts.

We were then lucky enough to be invited to a friends house for dinner. It was great catching up with Susan and hearing about her life since leaving Tom Price at the similar time to us. Nicholas had plenty of dress-ups for the kids and they ran around making plenty of noise.

Thank you to Marg who was very hospitible we enjoyed some meals, (kids swimming) and met Karen and her dog Milo who were staying in the B and B out the back.

Wednesday bought on our next leg heading out west on the Overlander's way.