Day 1, 2 and 3

Well, I've finally posted about my holidays in detail. Wanted to wait until I could do it all in one hit. I've broken it up mainly in lots of 1 and 2 days, depending on what days had lots of photos.

We arrived in Townsville around 9.30pm on June 19th, and were met at the airport by Chris' sister jen, whom we were staying with. That night was just spent getting settled in. We arrived during a week when the whole east coast was having strangely cold weather. I was assured that the weather was normally much nicer. It was generally not too cold for me, but it was overcast and dreary for the first week.

On our first full day in Townsville we met up with Chris' mum at the local shops, and she came back with us for lunch. We then went round to Chris' friend Ron's place, who had just gone back to Townsville himself after living in L.A for a few months. He had stopped over in Melbourne for a few days on the way to L.A and I had met him then. We went with Ron for a driven tour of the city, and went up to the lookout at Castle Hill, from where you can see the city, bay and islands. Thats Magnetic Island in the first two photos. Where we are staying is about 5 minutes around the other side of Castle Hill. After getting back to Ron's, Chris and I met up with Jen at his old home for dinner with his parents.


This is a shot of 'The Saint' on Castle Hill. He appeared overnight following a local footy game several decades ago and promptly became a local icon. The council had it removed a while back and was met with so much protest that they wound up putting him back up there!

Our second day in Townsville was the coldest on record, at a chilly 14C, which is mild to average for Melbourne in June. As it was also wet, we had an indoors day, only venturing out for lunch and to go to the shops. In the evening we met up with Ron and some of their other friends for a game of pool and a movie (Oceans 13 - not too bad if you can resist the urge to pick it apart).

Our third day was still cool but not too bad, and we went out for lunch with Chris' mum at the new riverside complex. We ate at Cbar, where I had beautiful grilled barramundi. The staff there were very attentive and we had coffee and cake after lunch then went for a walk around the grounds and down by the river, before going to Chris' parents place to play cards with his mum for a while before we had to meet Jen. That night we dropped Jen off in the city, went out for dinner and then to the casino.

My overall impression of Townsville is that it is a beautiful city, one which i would very much like to visit again when the weather is doing what its supposed to. I found the little things interesting, such as trees and birds that we don't get down south. There were lots of falcons and sea eagles for example, and green tree frogs just hanging out on window sills.