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.

Charters Towers........cont

Since being here at Charter Towers we have been to the old Venus Battery which is where they used to extract the gold from rock, it was very interesting learning about the process from start to finish. We also learnt that there is 30klm of mining tunnels situated under the town, it was mind boggling to know that all these tunnels exist.

Also when we were in the town Bazza went into a printing shop where an 80yr old man, is still using hot metal and printing machines from the days when Bazz did his apprenticeship which were replaced by computerised machinery 30 yrs ago.

Last night we also went back in a time warp when we rocked up to the Drive Inn Theatre, it was great to pull up beside a speaker and pop it in the window where we were able to listen to 50's & 60's music until the film commenced. Then it was up to the kiosk for our little feast of hamburger, chicko roll & chips, just like we used to over 30yrs ago ! What we would have given to have lay back seats then !!

Today we went out to the Burdekin Weir which was built in 1902 when there was a severe drought in Charters Towers, it is a lovely spot to go only 14klm from the town.

Charters Towers........cont

This morning it was off to the cattle sale yards, to experience the process and the antics of the auctioneer's and some of the buyers. It was very interesting to see how they sold the different lots of cattle, and how they segregated cattle that needed to be sold separately from within the lots, marking them with brightly coloured paint on the rump or shoulders. We would not make good auctioneer's as we were unable to pick up the buyers bids. We also called into the ambulance museum which had a very old Ford Ambulance on display along with the log books from the call outs from over the years and heaps more memorabilia.
This afternoon we both had a doctor's appointment at the local medical centre, good thing it was only antibiotics that we needed as the doctor was ancient, well into his 80's we think. His bed side manner had a lot to be desired, blunt and to the point, when I opened my mouth for him to have a look he snapped that he had not told me to stick out my tongue.

Charters Towers

We enjoyed our time at Hughenden and we even visited their dinosaur museum. The river was dry, but there is an underground river where they get their water supply from about 4oo metres underground. It was much better quality than the artesian water that we have had for the last couple of weeks, a big plus it didn't smell !

Arrived here at Charters Towers by lunch time, after speaking with a few other travellers have decided to extent our stay here, as next weekend when we were due to hit Townsville there are the V8 Super Cars in town, so finding somewhere to stay is near impossible.

We have a lovely spot in the park with a concrete slab and plenty of shade, and not very far from the amenities. Again we have a bush poet in the park, so our happy hour was spent listening to his original poems, and yarns that all the bush poets seem to share. We have the Pajero booked in for a service tomorrow morning, have to have it there by 7.50am, so thought we may have some breakfast in the town. We will have our bikes so can come back here to the park if the service takes longer than they expect.

This afternoon we went for a drive up the Towers Hill to the lookout of the town where there are 30 bunkers that were used in WW ll and numerous gold mine shafts, it is the first time we have been up any height for some weeks, seems strange seeing a hill or two ! While we are here we will go out to the cattle sales on Wednesday. We are also excited about there being an operating Drive-In-Cinema, will have to wait until the weekend for that nostalgic experience, will be going in more comfort in the Pajero than we used to experience in the VW Beatle ! Looking forward also to having a good look around the town and it's lovely Heritage buildings.