Charters Towers to Airlie Beach

Our next leg of our journey took us from Charters Towers to Townsville, across the mighty Burdekin River.

When we have previously been here we have taken a photo of the bike in front of the flood heights sign.  It doesn't quite have the same effect when it is the ute.  Surprisingly, the floods in February weren't as high here as they have been in the past.

What we did notice was hills.  The terrain is quite different to what we had experienced for the last couple of weeks.

We had a special occasion to look forward to in Townsville.  We met with Jenny of Elefantz and her lovely hubby for lunch by the water.  What a contrast the scenery was compared to the outback we had been travelling through.  It was so nice to see them both again and chat about all sorts of things.  Did we take a photo of us all?  Nope, too busy talking.

Jenny had suggested we meet at a large servo on the edge of town rather than try to negotiate the main city with the van.  It was an excellent idea. After enjoying our lunch they told us a bit about the floods as we drove back to the van.  The area in which we had parked was about the worst affected by the flooding back in February.  The Bunnings store next to where we parked has only just re-opened and the servo is still working out of transportable buildings.  There is a nearby housing estate, full of nice new homes, which had all been under water - mostly up to the eaves - and many were still uninhabitable.  Of course, there is a shortage of tradesmen to complete the work with so many homes affected and negotiating with insurance companies is always quite a task.  If you want to order new furniture, which most need to do, there is a delay of several months on delivery.  The area really has taken a hard hit.

Surprisingly to us, the main business centre of the city was unaffected by actual flooding, just the non stop rain during the monsoon low.

After our pleasant interlude, we started to head south, seeing our first sugar cane fields for this trip.  The cane is quite mature, with some already in flower.  Harvest starts in June.

The next town we travelled through was Ayr.  Ayr has quite a sizable retail area and is obviously the main centre for the surrounding districts.  

We had intended to camp here for the night, but as we were travelling well, kept going to the next little town, Home Hill.  The council run caravan park was an ideal place to stay.  The town had experienced a very busy day, as the picnic races had been held.  When we left the following morning, we were rather surprised at the number of marquees and tent etc at the race track.  It had obviously been a really important day on the social calender.

Home Hill is just 10kms south of Ayr, and is looking a little sad.  There is a nice, new supermarket complex, but the old supermarket building is empty, as are many others.

These impressive murals were on either end of a long row of shops.  Sadly, only one was trading.  I dare say the close proximity to Ayr is having a detrimental affect on this little town.

Our next stop was at the seaside town of Bowen.  We had hoped to go to the lookout on Flagstaff Hill, but the road was unsuitable for caravans.  We did find a nice spot to park by the sea and have our morning tea.

Bowen is famous for its mangos and features "The Big Mango".  No, we didn't call in, just drove past.

Our destination for the night was Airlie Beach.  We had been told how lovely the town is, so thought we may spend a couple of nights there.  Note that the name of the town is Airlie BEACH.  The above photo is of the beach!!!

If you want to go swimming or sun bathing, you go to the Airlie Beach Lagoon on the waterfront.

This sign may also influence your decision to swim in the lagoon.

The town is really commercial and is mainly a jump off point to visit the Whitsunday Islands.  Unfortunately, it wasn't really the weather for it, despite how nice it looks in the above photo.  There was a really strong easterly wind, that had blown for days, and scatty showers came across all the time.  

There is a nice walkway/cycleway along the waterfront, but we only went along a bit of it due to the weather.  If it had been nicer weather we would have got out the pushbikes and gone for a ride along here and gone out to one of the islands, but it wasn't to be this time.

What we did do was go for a drive around the area.  The marina housed some rather spectacular craft and with the backdrop of all the apartments it looks rather exotic.  As well as the rich, with their boats Airlie Beach is also really popular with backpackers.  There were so many small campervans at the caravan park. The whole place is a lot like the gold coast.

In the end we decided to just have the one night there and continue south the next day, as we tend to prefer smaller, quieter places.

More soon.