The rest of the week in Townsville

We visited Reef HQ which is the worlds largest living coral reef exhibition but I only got one good photo and this as only one of the samll tanks.

Next we visited Dairy Farmers Stadium the home of the Queensland Cowboys Rugby League Team. They were not at thome so we just took a photo of the stadium. then we went to the Cowboy's leagues Cluib in Flinders street for lunch. Great  meal.

Our next trip was to Magnetic Island. We took the ferry from Townsville over to the Island and what a dea, because we had pension cards it was only $29 return for the two of us. When we reached the Island we purchased all day bus passes for $7 each and were able to travel wherever we wanted on that day. We went to Picnic Bay first.

We then went on the short walk to the lookout at Picnic Bay which was only 600m (only they didn't say it was straight up) and it took over an hour but the view was worth it.

Then we hopped on a bus and visited Horseshoe Bay which is the main area where all the shops are (although there aren't that many) We found a great fish and chip shop that gave them to you in paper and we sat on the beach and ate them.

Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to visit any of the other beaches and we had to get the bus back to the ferry and travel home to our lovely caravan.We had a great day on the island and would love to go again as there are many walks that we did not have time to do.

On Wednesday 1st August we left the caravan park at Townsville and headed for Cardwell were we had hoped to stay for a few days either in the free camp or one of the caravan parks - what an eye opener that was there were literally hundresds of caravans there and no room at the Inn. So we travelled on to the Kennedy store where Camp 5 says you can stay at a free camp for a purchase from the store. Stephen went in to ask and the lady apologised as the Council had stopped her from doing this. But she told us about a free council run camp 9 km further down the road so we headed to this for an overnight stop.

We pulled in just about lunch time and found a place to park there were about 20 caravan shere and another couple that we met in Cardweell pulle din behind us. The first sign of wildlife that we saw was a Cassowary just wandering in and out of the bush around the camp and the next was a small bantam cock that decided to roost in the tree next to where we were and crow at 4am the next morning ( I didn't hear it as I have taken to wearing ear plugs)

We then thought we had beter try and book somewhere for the next week instead of just turning up and being disappointed. After three knock backs as they were full I was starting to get worried when we called the Hideaway Holiday Village at Mission beach . They firstly told us they couldn't fit us in and then they rang back 10mins later and said they had reshuffled and could fit us in so we took it and here we are in the most beautiful part of the coast for a week. The beach is beautiful.