31/7/17 Magnetic Townsville

  Hi folks , back again , been a bit preoccupied with things of late , but here we go .
We've shifted up to Townsville and revisited old ground . The ute needed a service , so that was the priority . Wednesday was the day for the service and we had to drop it off at 8:40 am , after having a minor deviation on the way in , we retraced our steps & found where we needed to be , bikes unloaded and free of the ute we road toward the city , stopping frequently to check where we were going . Eventually we found our way past the pit lane & buildings for the V8 Supercars , and past the site for the new football stadium for the Cowboys NRL team , then into the city .

  There are some murals in the city , this one is great -

  Down to the Strand for some lunch , our views toward Magnetic Island are excellent .

  The beach at The Strand isn't bad , except if you're a surfer .

 The pier at the end of the beach caught my eye as well .

 How can we forget Townsville's waterfall toward the southern end of The Strand .

  After lunch we rode back along the Ross River - bikes tracks either side of the river , and for the majority of it , runs though parkland . There were a few interesting trees at one stop , there were in flower and also have an interesting trunk - covered in large round spikes .

 My sister Maree & husband Kevin arrived and camped beside us , it has been good catching up with them , we went up to Mt Stuart - there are some communication towers up there and a stunning 360 degree view .

 They have done some burning off around the towers and the army areas on the southern side of the mountain , grass trees are starting to come back .



 Golf was on Saturday at 8:30am , and I some how managed to get a game with one of the board of directors and a couple of regulars who were good fun to have a round with . I had a great day , playing quite consistently after having a birdie on the first hole - 21 points on the front nine with one wipe , and 20 points on the back nine !!!
 This is one of the par 3's and another of the green & fairway on one of the par 4's .

 Moving forward again , today we headed over to Magnetic Island for the day . The Sealink ferry had us across in 20 mins , and we picked up our hire car and set about showing Maree & Kevin some of the sights of the island . Snorkelling had been ruled out by the sea being very cloudy .
 This is Rocky Bay .

 This ones the pier at Picnic Bay .

Here's one very wind blown tree .

 Beside the walking platform are many trees , in those trees are green ant nests - they link leaves together to form a home , some structures are a lot smaller , this one is the size of a football .

 From there we headed to Bremmer Point , there are some Allied Wallabies that live in and amongst the rocky outcrop - they are a rock kangaroo , but only small .

  Passing through Arcadia , then onto Horsehoe Bay on the northern side of the island , we went to an old school house and went for a walk in a patch of rainforest . 2 years ago we had seen thousands of butterflies here , today however there weren't that many - probably closer to 80 or 90 , but equally impressive .

 Down to the beach for lunch and a walk along the beach , before getting in for a swim - such a beautiful location .

 It's a very popular anchorage for boats , there must have been at least 30 anchored up !!
From there we headed up to Arthur Bay Lookout . There are also some WW2 forts and gun emplacements there - we left that to do another day . The lookout however was quite good .

 That was our day completed , so we headed back to the terminal and wait for our ferry back across .
Here's a map link :- https://drive.google.com/open?id=1yCG3GSH90_nUeakU328OedLxqN0&usp=sharing

23/7/17 Race day

  Saturday was golf day at Bowen Golf Club , but before that we headed into town and down to the marina to check out the Offshore Superboats that are in town for a round of their championship . They were due to go out for pole position qualifying , but we ran out of time for that and headed of to golf , here's a few shots of the boats .

  They use large American utes to pull the smaller boats , the biggest get pulled by semi trailer , here's an F Truck for you - an F 650 - it even runs truck size wheels & tyres , as well as a truck size fuel tank down below the doors - it's a monster truck !!

  Golf was interesting , the course is only 9 holes , so you play them twice from different tee positions. I played with a local , a guy from the central coast of NSW and another from Home Hill - further north of Bowen . Not the best game , 28 points , but some good golf amongst the bad .


 Sunday , the first race was at 10:30am , so we headed to the marina again and found a suitable rock to sit on . The course wasn't too far away , we could see the finish line in front of us . All the boats came out for a sighting lap prior to the race , idling out of the marina & onto the course , then opening up the throttles , sending up a rooster tail of water over 50m long !!

 Then there were the other class of outboard motor powered boats . These boats are much smaller , but not a lot slower .

 After their sighting lap , it was all go , the motors roared as the came down the straight to the finish line , spray shooting out the back , it was an impressive sight .

They raced for 30 minutes before the chequered flag came out .

  They had a helicopter taking footage of the race , a stunt plane doing aerobatics - pretty tame ones we thought , and other entertainment for everyone watching .

 The race winner was the 222 boat pictured above . The race over , it was back to the van and some Bbq fish for lunch . Bowen has quite a few murals on buildings in the main street , here are a few .

  Bowen's major industry is vegetables , so we drove out through the Don River valley to check it out. The drive was quite amazing , we passed a waterhole and I jumped on the brakes so I could take a photo -

  There were hundreds & hundreds of Whistling Ducks - they are very social birds , normally in groups , but we've never seen this many in one spot before - and they were whistling & quacking away - it was quite loud !!
 We continued on passing mango orchards , sweetcorn crops , tomatoes , chilli's , capsicum , pumpkins and quite a few others we didn't recognise . We got to the end of the road and found a track down to the river , and found river sand from one side to the other , only a small channel of water about 10m wide on the far side , only about 200mm deep . There were wheel tracks everywhere , people & farmers use it as access across the river . Getting out , we locked the hubs , selected 4wd and headed into the softish sand , it slowed us down and we stopped deciding whether to carry on or not . Selecting low range 4wd , we continued on to the edge of the water , checking the depth , we hit the water and cruised up the track back into the soft sand and then out onto a gravel track again . Job done , we unlocked the hubs and headed off like nothing had happened - it hadn't , we made it across easily .
 Further up the track we found processing sheds , all seemed to be in use , one was processing sweetcorn - a semi trailer load of it !!

 Back to the Bruce Hwy and across it , we drove around several more crop growing areas , more mango trees & tomatoes & capsicums . We crossed the river another 3 times , this time on rough tracks and causeways - no sand or water involved .
 Back in Bowen , we went up to a water tower at Mt Nutt to check out the views -

 If you're eating tomatoes & capsicums at the moment , chances are they are coming from here .
This is the view out to Queens Beach , the golf course is on the edge of the beach where the palm trees are .



 We missed out on going to Rose Bay the other day , so that's where we headed . A nice beach facing Gloucester Island .

 Rose Bay is at the end of King's Beach , here's another view of King's Beach .

 Bowen has many options for lookouts , we have been to 4 of them in the last few days , here's the last we visited , the view is out over Muller's Lagoon .

 That's it for today , here's a map link :- https://drive.google.com/open?id=1GzQ-XniO01i0UNRWVv7N1RgSAhU&usp=sharing