Townsville

Thursday 17th

After leaving Airlie Beach we headed  back to the Bruce Highway for our morning coffee at the Whitsunday Gold Coffee shop. We grabbed a couple of takeaways so we could drive on as we had a big day ahead, well, that's how it started.

We had been umming and ahhing over whether we needed a snorkel, well, Richard had anyway. There are a number of creek crossings to be done but also many of the roads we want to travel will be dust as well as bull dust and having a snorkel above most of the dust will stop it getting into the engine. So, while Trish drove Richard organised a snorkel which actually meant we were going to stay in Townsville rather than push on to Cairns. Cairns has a public holiday on Friday which meant everything was closed so we couldn't do it there.

On the drive, we did manage to see a large mango and also a large pumpkin. We have also noticed many "red" trucks coming back from further north, assuming this is what our truck will look like after our trip to the top.

Reached our campground in Townsville around 3.30, set up, had some dinner and crashed.

Friday 18th

We thought we'd drop the car off and then head to Magnetic Island for the day. The children have been wanting to go horse riding ever since we started so they are booked in on a 2 hour horse ride in Horseshoe Bay where they even get to go riding in the sea. Will report back on how that goes.