Townnsville....cont

Well I think someone must have redirected the trucks last night as we had a much better night, or maybe we were just very tired from the night before !

Today we caught the ferry out to Magnetic Island and hired a topless little Henry car to get us around, seeing as Bazza has a dislike for buses. We spent a few hours out at Horseshoe Bay, where we sat on the beach soaking up the sun, and one of us had a swim, it was just beautiful not too cold. We had an enjoyable lunch before motoring back stopping to have a look at some of the other picturesque bays on the island before catching the ferry back from Nelly Bay.

Townsville

Have spent the last couple of days here in Townsville, we are staying at the Magnetic Gateway Caravan Park. When we were allocated our site, I thought how great it was just a few steps to the pool, a large concrete slab and lovely green grass all around, but I did not take in the Bruce Hwy just across from the pool ! The hwy is very busy especially at night with the road trains, was up at 3.30am putting on a CD to camouflage some of the road noise. Had thought we may stay here over the weekend but now think we will move on again, slowly going south towards Mackay.

Today we went for drive up to the lookout on Castle Hill, where you can get a 360 degree view of Townsville and out to Magnetic Island. We also went to the Strand and Rowes Bay, where we went for a nice bike ride on the bike track along the foreshore and was able to ride around the caravan park there, that is very popular as it is right on the beach. They do not take bookings there, you just have to rock up about 8.30 -9am and wait for vans to leave and then they allocate you a site. It was very tight there and not as nice as the one we are at, but it is away from the hwy so would be much quieter.

After going to the local shopping centre and getting a few more supplies it was back to the park, for a lovely refreshing swim and time to do a little reading.

Ravenswood...cont

We decided to stay here another night, so today we hopped on our bikes and went to look at the museum and an antiques shop, we had saved them to give us something to do today. We also stopped at the Imperial Hotel for a shandy and a beer before the short cycle back to the van for lunch and a rest. Tomorrow we move onto Townsville for a few days.

Ravenswood

Arrived here at Ravenswood well before lunch, and found the showground campsite where we will stay tonight only $12 for power and water. There are about 30 other vans and campervans here, some are with a caravan club.
After climbing a very steep path up to the lookout we were able to get a good view of the open cut gold mine and see the pit where giant trucks and machinery once worked. We then went for a well deserved beer & lunch at the Railway Hotel, which is one of only two remaining in the town which boasted forty eight in the gold rush back in 1868. We stopped at the old miner's cottage, and was surprised to find inside many items on display from when it was once occupied. Around the town you can see many old chimney stacks, boilers & mullock heaps from earlier days.

Charters Towers........cont - last day

The last couple of days have been beautiful blue skies, temp around 26 degrees during the day and 15 degrees overnight so really pleasant. So much better having the blue sky than the heavy overcast days that we were experiencing for a few days, although they were still lovely and warm. Today has been a very lazy day, only one thing left that we wanted to do and that was pop into the the goldmine hut just off the main st, which had many interesting facets and I was also able to try my hand at panning. The old volunteer Tony was quiet a character gets out his piano accordion and belts out a few tunes and then sucks you in to buy a packet of dirt to try your luck. I am sure they must sprinkle a few gold specs in each packet as my few specs looked about the same amount that he got out of his.

Will probably only travel about 100klms tomorrow as we want to stop at another old gold mining town Ravenswood on our way to Townsville.