On 2nd July Evie and I left a cold and frosty Canberra early in the morning to get our flight to the a lot warmer Townsville, which is the unofficial capital of North Queensland. We flew with Virgin Blue, the domestic branch of the V Australia airlines, as I took advantage of their Virgin Airpass, which is a system exclusively for those who don’t live in Australia.
You have to book a minimum of three flights, the maximum is eight, and you’ll get the flights at the cheapest rates. Plus you can change the dates and times of your flights online up to 24 hours before that flight is due to depart. You might get charged for changing your flights but only if the new one that you pick is more expensive then you will have to pay the difference. We had to change our flights to Brisbane as we were getting there earlier and I only had to pay $40 to make up the difference, which is about £20.
So we arrived early afternoon to temperatures of about 20 degrees and despite it being overcast it felt just right for me! Evie and I stayed at the Reef Lodge Backpackers, sharing a twin bedroom with a TV for $60 a night, which worked out at $30 each per night shared so I was impressed that I was only paying £15 for each night! As we were due to stay there for a week we got one night for free. It was a really nice hostel; it gives you the feel of kind of being in a rainforest: there are lots of plants and trees around to add to the atmosphere.
We then made our way to the Tony Ireland Stadium which is a $30 taxi fare from where we were staying, to watch the first Twenty20 match between Australia A and Sri Lanka A, which Australia A won! See, there had to be cricket somewhere in this trip…
On Saturday morning we had decided to get the ferry over to Magnetic Island (which is part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park) to spend the day there, it was something that both Evie and I had on our lists of things we wanted to do and it was a nice day to do it, especially as we had cut our trip short in Townsville to get to Brisbane early.
We had breakfast at a lovely restaurant that was about 10 minutes from our hostel. It was called The Balcony Restaurant and the food was so nice that we went there the following morning as well! Having already started to miss home comforts such as HP Sauce, I was over the moon to find out that the restaurant had some!
As our ferry wasn’t due for a while we took a walk along The Strand, which includes a man made beach. It was there that I saw my first Ibis, which apparently is a common bird in these parts. They look quite creepy at first look and they’re fairly big too, but the ones that we saw, and we saw many, were pretty docile. The seagulls on the other hand were tiny compared to the ones we get back at home!
We went over to Magnetic Island using a company called Sunferries. It cost me $29 for a return as they only accepted Australian Student Cards, unlike the bus service who accepted my ISIC card so my day ticket for that was only $3.30. We had looked into doing a guided tour but then found out that it was $40! I definitely recommend the cheaper route, it gives you a chance to do things your way.
Our first stop was at the end of the bus route at Horseshoe Bay. It took around 15 minutes to get there on the bus, would take a bit longer walking as part of the route is quite hilly. I loved Horseshoe Bay. It’s so picturesque and I could have spent the whole day just there, and I definitely want to go back. We took a walk along the beach, where the sea was nice and warm, picking up broken off bits of coral that had hardened and shells and such. On our walk back towards the town area I saw a ray in the sea! I know it wasn’t a manta ray as they’re huge but it could have been a stingray, I’m not sure.
Horseshoe Bay. Photo taken by me.
We had lunch at a place called The Marlin Bar, where I had some crumbed (breaded) scallops with chips for $6 – knowing how expensive scallops are back in England I just had to have them. I was also introduced to Australian “champagne”, which was really nice, especially the Rosemount O as it was quite fruity and not too dry. We saved by getting piccottos (small bottles) at $6.50 each.
After getting some postcards and stamps, we made the short walk up to Bungalow Bay Koala Village, which is not only YHA (Youth Hostel Association) accomodation but it also has a wildlife park on site that you can do tours of. We also saw a Kookaburra on our way up, hearing it first before seeing it as they’re quite small! At the Koala Village we registered for the tour and opted to have a photo with a koala, which cost $31 altogether. The koala was called Barney, and we were told to pretend that we were trees, and also that he was fond of grabbing breasts, which we soon found out! We were also lucky enough to see a female koala that had recently given birth, so it was still in its pouch.
It was a really interesting tour, a very hands-on one too, as we got to hold a wide variety of animals. One of the most challenging animals for me was the Black Cockatoo, who would take a sunflower seed from you if you put it between your lips! Now I’m not keen on birds at all but I managed to do it, after all, when are you going to get the chance to do something like that again? We also held various lizards, from a Blue Tongue to a Shingle Back and a Bearded Dragon. We saw an Echidna too but it was being too shy to come out fully.
Onto the bigger lizards and we were able to hold a little crocodile. I say little, it was about a foot and a half long! I also held a huge python, where we were told to keep our palms flat at all times. Evie held a yellow bellied tree snake which was a lot smaller than the python!
One animal that wasn’t part of the tour but we saw anyway was a very inquisitive Rock Wallaby, which was really cute! Needless to say in my rugby loving brain it received the name Rocky, after the Wallabies (Australia Rugby Union team) captain Rocky Elsom. Since then we’ve named any wallaby we’ve seen after past and present players!
I know I’m on holiday and it’s about trying new things but one section of the tour that I couldn’t do, that was thankfully at the end, was the butterflies and birds sections. When the tour guide mentioned that there was a part on butterflies I went into a slight panic attack as I have quite a bad phobia of them, especially when there’s lots of them in close proximity to me! The same goes with birds, they’re okay when they’re far away from me but when there’s lots of them flying around me then I just panic, which is why holding the Black Cockatoo was such an achievement for me.
With the excitement and business of Saturday, we decided to have a lazy day on Sunday back at the Tony Ireland Stadium watching the first 50 over match between Australia A and Sri Lanka A. With our student discounts it only cost $2 to get in! That’s £1 to go to the cricket! Despite Australia A losing their game, there was still much hilarity that amused Evie and I from the music to the players.
Monday was our last day in Townsville and we spent the morning after our Coffee Club breakfast (this trip is going to end up having a subtitle of: A tour of the Coffee Club chain) exploring the two main museums that they have: Reef HQ and the Museum of Tropical Queensland.
They were both really interesting, we learned a lot about the Great Barrier Reef and its inhabitants at Reef HQ, where Evie and I were on a hunt for Nemo and Dory from the film Finding Nemo – we found both, along with many other weird and wonderful fish. My favourite bit, in honour of my brother, was the sharks. We saw dogfish, reef sharks, nurse sharks, it was pretty cool.
At the Museum of Tropical Queensland there was a big exhibition of the wreckage found at the Pandora, which was a ship sent to find the Bounty, which then ended up sinking in North Queensland. A lot of what they preserved was still in a fairly good state and it was interesting to watch video footage of them x-raying rocks that they had brought up to find out what was in them. They also had exhibits on dinosaurs found in the area, very cool, along with a science bit that reminded me of places like Thinktank and the Science Museum as there was lots to try and play with.
I enjoyed my stay in Townsville. Having been unsure of it at first when first arriving, once I got settled it was all very interesting. The highlight of it for me would have to be Magnetic Island, I would love to spend a bit more time there just exploring and relaxing, we didn’t see much of the small island and I think it would definitely be worth a few days just there.
