Day 23: Cloncurry - Townsville

We left Cloncurry at 6AM and stopped for breakfast at 9AM in Richmond.

Our journey was pretty uneventful. Oly and I were pretty tired and relieved to be away from that Homestead. We really thought we were going to be stuck there for a long long time.

When we passed an over turned truck Steve decided to tell us that if you veer even a little bit on the side of the road there is a sort of whip effect and the end trailer can turn over taking the whole train with it. We later overtook another huge road train which was pretty tense from where I was sitting!

We arrived in Townsville around 3PM and Steve took us to a mechanic who wasn't able to help us as he was not familiar with VW's, plus he was very busy for the next two weeks. We made a few calls and decided to sort things out tomorrow.

We hired a car and checked into Bayview apartments which are right on The Strand overlooking the sea. I think we were lucky to find somewhere as most of the places we called were fully booked. We presume it has something to do with the funeral tomorrow of the Black Hawk pilot that crashed off Fiji.

Oly and I walked along the seafront. It was amazing how many people were exercising; joggers, rollerbladers, basketball and soccer players. They even had balancing beams. The Strand esplanade is beautiful, it is lined with palm trees and lawn. Everything is very well kept and clean and it has a real holiday feel.

As a treat we had dinner at a restaurant overlooking the sea. I had barramundi in beer batter and it was delicious. Walking back we visited the Cold Rock Ice Creamery where they crushed your choice of sweets into your choice of ice-cream flavour and then present it to you in your choice of tub or cone.

It's like Henry never existed ;)

Em

Miles: 790km
Time: 9 hours
Location: Click Me!
Temp: 31c