One day at a time

Have had a lovely time in Caloundra with Campbell. We've had a relaxing break, shopping, eating and sight seeing. Back to Melbourne tomorrow.

North Queensland - Sky 1 Originally uploaded by PD Blog Pics Pictures from a recent trip to North Queensland

Tuesday 15 June 2010 Today I drove for five hours, down to the Mamu Rainforest Canopy Walkway. The closest large town is Innisfail, where we stopped to have lunch. I bought a new USB Wireless modem, but that proved to be more of a problem than a solution. The Canopy Walkway was well worth the trip, with a observation town and cantilever bridge over the gorge. The drive there and back proved to be enjoyable and I had none of the usual signs (tied shoulders or stiff back) after completing the trip. Tried to use the new USB modem, but to activate it, you needed to call a number only accessible by Telstra services !! Tried their website through Campbell’s service and registered it for what turned out to be a purely voice service. We had dinner in Port Douglas and had a nice Mexican meal and on our return to the resort, packed for tomorrow’s journey back to Melbourne.

Monday 14 June 2010 Today was the trip up to Karunda. This time we were going to take the SkyRail (cable car) up to Karunda and then take the scenic railway down to Cairns. The drive down to Cairns was enjoyable. Using the i30 is very easy. Took a while to pick up the tickets, was in the wrong queue to start off with. After this little hiccup, we were on our way in the first leg of the cable car trip, over the rainforest canopy. It is a little un-nerving to be that high above the ground with only a relatively small piece of metal connecting the cable car to the actual cable. Went to a short walk about the rainforest and saw one side of the Barron Falls, before reaching Kuranda. The town was busy, as the train had just arrived too. We had lunch and then went to the butterfly sanctuary, which is just a big enclosure with some amazing looking butterflies and moth. They proved to be difficult to photocopy on the wing, but I got some good shots of those that settled occasionally. ...

Sunday 13 June Had an interrupted sleep and woke quiet early, although it was light outside. After a small breakfast in the hotel room, we set off to find the beach and walk into Port Douglas for a more substantial breakfast. Finding the beach provide to be more difficult than it seemed and in the end, we had to walk through the Sheraton resort complex to find it. It’s an amazing sight, a vast stretch of sandy beach, fringed with coconut and mangrove trees. The walk up to the town was very pleasant, wandering bare foot, along the edge of the water on soft cool sand. When we reached the town centre, it took a while to decide on a venue for brunch, but found a nice one on one of the side streets. Afterwards we went to the Sunday Market and look around the stalls. Before wandering back to the resort, Campbell went shopping and bought a couple of pairs of shorts. After a short rest, we drove back into the town to do some food shopping and have a late lunch. I had a very nice ca...

Saturday 12 June 2010 Work up at my usually work day time to ensure that I had enough time to have breakfast, picking Campbell up and get to the airport in time for our flight to Cairns. It was all going reasonably smoothly (although we had to park on the roof of the multi-storey car park, until I realised that I had left my phone in the car as we got to the airport in the courtesy bus. Had to make the round trip, but although it felt time ages to me, we still had time to check in and walk to the gate before they started boarding the flight. I have noticed that Qantas check-in people don’t tend to bother checking to see if there are particular seats available if you ask them for emergency exit seats for example. The flight up took 3 hours, but we had plenty of toys to keep us both entertained and we did get feed as well. Pick up our luggage and hire car from Cairns airport. I did get an Hyundai i30, which I was pleased about. It’s been interesting trying it out and there was a ...

Picture taken on 7 June 2009 looking out from Caloundra.

Townsville 2007 Originally uploaded by PD Blog Pics . Townsville 2007 I have loaded the pictures from my trip up to my websites: Townsville Magnetic Island & Surrounds

Spend the morning sorting out the final things. The flight up went well, we got first row seats and I watched a video on Campbell's laptop on the flight up. Things took a slight turn for the worst when Campbell's bag didn't turn up; it was still in Melbourne, as it had lost its tag. Then the GPS got us a bit lost, although we found the hotel in the end and after driving around, we decided that Townsville must close very early, there was no supermarkets open and we only found one convenience store open!! Early to bed for us and lets hope Campbell's bag turns up tomorrow morning, as promised.

With the chances of Campbell's case turning up this morning virtually zero, we went shopping. We went to a couple of the shopping centres in and around Townsville. I still think that the Garmin GPS was better than the TomTom for accuracy, but I think that it is being let down by inaccurate maps. I bought a couple of things, one of which I had planned to buy. We spent the rest of the afternoon lazing by the pool and I used my goggles. They did the job that they were intended to do and I keep my contact lenses in my eyes. Finally Campbell's suitcase turned up this evening, still very much intact. We had dinner in the hotel restaurant, which was a very pleasant experience

Walked into Townsville this morning along The Strand. We found a couple of the cafes that have been mentioned in the guides, but only one was open and even that one didn't have a working kitchen. We made do with coffee and cake, before continuing on into the city and after a short stop at the Information Centre, we wandered into the Mall. Unfortunately, this has definitely seen better days and it was surprising not to see a department store there. After the mall, we went to the aquarium and I took lots of pictures, there are a lot that will be deleted, but hopefully there will be some good ones in there. After a short rest back at the hotel, we went up Castle Hill and it is an amazing view up there. The drive down was slow, avoiding all the pedestrians. We went shopping at the Woolworths in the town centre, and then found Palmer Street, we choose one of the restaurants along there for dinner.

We went to Magnetic Island today. It's a very pretty place, but it looks like it is going the same way as Hamilton Island. There is a lot of building work going on at the harbour and lots of places are up for sale. Surprisingly most of the places were closed, the only ones opened appeared to be the pubs. We went to Horsehoe Bay and Picnic Bay. We walked up to Hawkins Lookout which had a great view back over to Townsville. Got bored in the afternoon, Campbell was reading for most of it. We went to Palmer Street for dinner again and found a great indian restaurant, which was mentioned in one of the guides. (We later found out that it's consider the best indian restaurant in the city!)

We went on the longest drive so far this trip to Charter Towers. It's a nice country town and reportly has the largest battery in Australia. Not that we saw it, when we realised it would cost $25 all up to see it, we decided against it - anyway we have seen the same thing at Sovereign Hills. Drove back into Townsville, to one of the shopping centres just outside the city centre. For dinner we went to the italian place on Palmer Street. It's strange that it would have become the main eatery street for the city when the Strand has far better views, but there are very few restuarants on the Strand. Townsville appears to have missed the boat on so many areas in relation to tourist or just simply developing the city. If it's not careful the centre will die and in fact there are already signs that this is happening in the Mall area.

We went on another long drive today to see the Welleman Falls near Ingham. On route we stopped off in Ingham and had a wander around the some of the stalls set up for the Australian-Italian Festival. I had some Cannoli for the first time and it was yum! The drive to the falls was interesting, with animals wandering over the road and un-tarmac bits, not forgetting the hair-raising hill climb section which was only wide enough for one car, but was supposed to cope with two way traffic - thankfully this was not high season and the traffic in both directions was very light. The falls were impressive, but we decided to forgo the 2 hour walk to the base. Didn't do that much in the evening, went out for pizza and ate it on the foreshore, then came back to watch a movie. We did make a stop at a Warehouse store and Campbell found a set of noise reducing headphones for $30, which actually work!