13 July 2011 - Black River Stadium, Queensland

Now settled back in the caravan after another awesome day out and about town. Australian Master Chef is playing in the background, and I will not comment further because this will probably play in a rather delayed fashion across the ditch and I would so not want to spill the beans and take the gloss off the excitement.

Jack left this morning heading toward Cairns, anticipating the arrival of his partner from Melbourne; she is flying up to join him. He had entertained us with his yarns and some had been left incomplete. We told him we looked forward to catching up with him further up the road to hear the end of the tales, and he is hoping we can tell him equally entertaining stories about ourselves; he may find us rather disappointing!

We travelled into town by an entirely different route this morning, one I realised that Tomtom had been suggesting to us when we first approached Townsville and which I had dissed in favour of the regular route via the Bruce Highway. As per usual, he was right and we would have saved ourselves some fuel had we paid attention. It is a longer way into the centre of the city, but this time we were heading to the Palmetum, a 17 hectare botanic garden closer to the previously separate city of Thuringowa, which was merged with the original Townsville only in 2008. The palms in this garden are just lovely, so many varieties of palms from all over the world amid other tropical forest plants. We found ourselves through to the other side on the garden and on the Ross Riverwalk, so decided to set off, walking part of this wide pathway that runs along each side of the river for many many kilometres. We walked as far as the Aplin Weir and back, a distance of probably a little under six kilometres.

Fresh water turtles a-swimming

Along the way we came upon a bridge spanning a tributary creek where there were dozens of fresh water turtles waiting to be fed. The longer we lingered above them, the more that arrived in anticipation of treasure. Fortunately I was still carrying around the rest of the turtle food we had purchased at the Gladstone Botanical Gardens, so their wait was short. But would you believe it! This special snack was not to their liking, although a school of minnows feasted on a later scattering. What fussy turtles! I shall now reserve the residue for ducks or gulls who I am sure will be more appreciative! Returning to the palmatum and fetching the eski, picnicking on a park bench was a welcome treat after such a walk.

The Aplin Weir

Over lunch we decided we needed to attack our mail problems from the other direction, the most important of those being the matter of our vehicle registration, and so we needed to find a Queensland Transport Authority office, yet again. We drove to a shopping centre and hunted out a telephone booth; the telephone directory was still there and intact. Armed with a couple of addresses, we checked our street map and made our way to the nearest one. A duplicate sticker has now been ordered and hopefully will be posted direct from the central office to us care of the Cairn’s Post Office. Given the saga so far, this is not likely to be the last you will hear about this otherwise petty matter.

We then hunted out a caravan sales yard to find someone who could fix our faulty shower one-way waste valve. We had finally had confirmation from Lotus in Melbourne that we could find someone here to replace it and have them bill Lotus direct under the warranty. Fortunately the outfit we called into, while not Lotus dealers as such (Brad at Caravan World in Woombye is the only Queensland agent) have had dealings with Lotus, have an ongoing relationship with them and were pleased to help us. Young Josh, the grandson of the owner and obviously the heir apparent to the business, is hoping that a part can be express delivered tomorrow and installed on Friday. Failing that, we will have a good excuse to stay on until next week and have it all resolved when the business week recommences.

The weather has held out for another day and looks like it will remain so for another day before it packs up on Friday for a couple of days. This evening I have fired off a couple of other emails which should deal with the rest of the missing mail items and so we are feeling on top of the situation as much as one reasonably could be. I subjected Chris to a pasta dish tonight, which he was not looking forward to, but even he had to admit it was delicious. So all in all, yet another fantastic day.