Moving On

Townsville City, Queensland, Australia
Saturday, January 11, 2014

We awoke to pouring rain on our final Hamilton Island morning, but luckily for us being a moving day, it wasn't vital. You could certainly tell we were English in the queue for the Airlie Beach ferry. There were only two passengers wearing wet weather gear, everyone else was in shorts and flip flops! Luckily for us, despite the rain, the crossing to the mainland was calm and we picked up our car and headed north on the 'Bruce' Highway. What I want to know is, where's Sheila's?
The coastal strip of sub tropical Queensland is a centre for sugar cane production and plantations and old railways lines that transport the cut crop criss cross the area. There are tomato and mango farms, plus coffee plantations,which took me by surprise. We were not far out of Airlie Beach when we came across an advertising hoarding inviting the traveller to take a break and sample the Whitsunday Coffee Company's brew. It was lunchtime and a decent cup of coffee is hard to find on this side of the world. We stopped at this quirky little cafe, complete with resident white cockatoo known as ‘the Boss’. Here, the coffee plants are grown, the beans picked, processed, roasted and ground before eventually finding the cup with great effect. Add a warm freshly made spinach and ricotta muffin and you have the essence of a first class lunch. We drove on amidst the odd shower for about 250 kms before reaching Townsville, our stop for the night. We wandered the centre looking for a suitable restaurant and eventually settled on a Mexican Cantina, as the best of a bad lot. The margarita at least was first class. Deciding we would like a drink, we wandered around attempting to find an establishment that looked as if it might accept anyone over the age of 30, with little success. Defeated, we decamped to the hotel bar, only to find it shut for the night at 9.45pm!! At this point we had two choices, room service or the pole dancing club on the corner, which did appear to welcome a more mature clientele!? I'll leave it to your imaginations as to which one won out!
More rain this morning, but again it was a travelling day. Boy did it rain on the way up to Cairns and by the looks of the forecast we have not seen the end of it. Oh well, we have been so lucky up till now. Sugar is definitely king in Queensland and grown as far as the eye can see. As we drove further north, banana plantations started to be interspersed amongst the sugar cane, the hands of bananas bagged on the trees ready for harvesting. There is a high Italian base to the communities, as there was mass migration to this part of Australia at the end of the 1800s to work in the sugar fields. It shows in the delis and eateries we observed in the settlements we passed through.
We have reached the part of the trip when R&R is in the ascendancy and I may not have so much to say, for fear of boring you all! So, do not be surprised if reports are less frequent.
I'll sign off for now and speak later.Read more