Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Retracing Footsteps

Twenty years ago I fled Vancouver with a backpack and found myself travelling on a bus from Cairns to Townsville where I settled in a little place called Magnetic Island to hopefully enjoy myself for a couple of days.

Now I am back on that Island, but instead of being here alone I am able to experience it with Heather and Chloe. Some things really are better the second time around.


This time we rented a caravan so we could have some flexibility (and maybe save some cash by sleeping in it) as we will journey from Cairns to Brisbane.

Cairns was brief but fantastic. I too do not have the proper words to describe how unbelievably cool the Great Barrier Reef was. We followed that with a trip to the Atherton Tablelands (aka the NE Aussie Rainforest)

After that it was time to get the caravan and start the drive south. Once I got the through the initial paranoia of having to embrace bizarro-driving (i.e. everything is opposite) we took advantage of our new-found freedom by stopping along the way to Townsville at a couple of places. Places that were so enjoyable we ended up not making it to our destination, and instead had a lovely inaugural night in the caravan at the lovely Palms Caravan park in Ingham Australia.

The next day we made Townsville and after a quick assessment of the area decided to grab the ferry to Magnetic Island and park ourselves for a couple of days at Bungalow Bay.We enjoyed pizza/jug night at the hostel bar (yep - continuing the south american tradition of bringing Chloe into licensed establishments), got some quality beach time at Horseshoe Bay (I kid you not) beach before the rains came, and ended the day with a hike to "The Forts" where we came across some real wildlife (to go with the possum, bats, and wallabys that we have on the hostel grounds.

Tomorrow (Friday for us) we will depart and I will start to break new ground as we head south for Airlie Beach. and a date with some jet skis.

2 comments:

  1. Love the caravan, what a cool way to get around even on the wrong side of the road. Sounds like things are going well...same language must help!

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  2. ...and when I place my head up here, my feet stick out of bed I fear...

    Is that thing long enough to fit you all?

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