Three days in Townsville….

We’ve spent the last three days in Townsville.  We’ve seen the street that the kids lived on, the barracks that Chris lived in when he was in the Army, had fish and chips on the Strand, and we even “oohed” and “aahed” over the city lights from Castle Hill.

Below are some pictures of our three days in the Townsville area.

View of Castle Hill from our unit.  It was a great unit as it was close to everything.

 

 

 

We drove the following day out to Charters Towers to do some exploring.

 

The old part of Charter’s Towers.  Gold was discovered here and a town popped up along the miner’s trail from the fields to the ……

 

 

 

 

Gold Exchange, which is now the stock exchange.

 

 

 

 

Inside the foyer of the Royal Private Hotel.  It was like stepping back in time.

 

 

The outside of the Royal Hotel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had lunch at this little place at the front of the Stock Exchange.  We had genuine Australian Hamburgers complete with beetroot and Chocolate Malted Shakes.

 

 

 

 

Here we are at the Miner’s Cottage.  You could pan for gold, read some old books and magazines, check out the cottage itself, with all of the old pictures of Charter’s Towers.  I even regaled everyone with a rusty rendition of a bush poem, The Man from Ironbark by Banjo Patterson.

And here’s Ron and Pam enjoying their bus ride to Picnic Bay on Magnetic Island.  We’re off on a fishing adventure.

 

 

 

You will notice that there’s no pictures of the guys here.  We GIRLS, are the only ones who caught fish for the day.  Unfortunately, Pam’s Sweetlip was too small and mine was a  Remorra,  which couldn’t be eaten from what I was told.  It’s the sucker fish that hang around sharks.  And Yes!!  that’s what I was thinking….”So DOES this mean there’s sharks nearby?”

Coming back up from the jetty to have lunch at the local pub.

 

 

 

Well, this was the end of the day as we waited for the bus to arrive to take us back to the ferry and home.

 

 

Tonight, we’re eating in.  Chicken Spaghetti and garlic bread.  We had Mexican last night and we tried to explain that while it IS Mexican food, it’s AUSTRALIA’S version of Mexican food.  It was tasty and filled our tummies, but when you’ve had the real stuff, this can be an eye-opener. Tomorrow we head north stopping in to see Paluma Falls.  Time to get the walking shoes on.  Oh!  that reminds me that Chris and I need to practice our dance lessons too….One, two, three, four,….one two three, four,  stay in the box Chris and I’ll stop trying to lead.