Townsville

Hello again, its been a long time between blogs, so I apologise in advance for the length of this blog, you might want to grab a cuppa before you start reading!!   We have been settled in Townsville now for two and a half months.  Townsville is a great place to live, its a big city but not really.  Its a very easy place to live and work, and its lovely and warm.  A bit hot some days, but shouldn't complain.  35degrees and 90% humidity!!

Our home set up, with lots of tarps to keep rain out (didn't work though!)

The main reason for us to stop in Townsville was money money money.  We had sort of spent to much, oops.  So job hunting we went.  Mark got a job through Work Force Express ( a job agency ), at Roadtek.  It involved doing maintenance on Queensland road vehicles.  Mark enjoyed this job, met lots of interesting people.  Plus he didn't have to work exceptionally hard.  Which was lucky seeing as it was so hot and he was dressed in full sleeves and long pants work gear.  He was sopping wet by 0800!!!  All the guys at Marks work were great, their favourite saying was 'she's right old mate', apparently everyone calls each other old mate.  A general answer to anything in FNQ was true.  You'd tell someone about something that happened and you know how most people say "really", well in FNQ they say "true" (with an emphasis on the ooo sound).  Everyone was just pretty relaxed and didn't rush.  Was a very nice pace, you can imagine, we didn't find it hard!
I started off on the casual pool at The Townsville Hospital.  After orientation I did two shifts at their nursing home, two shifts on surgical wards then I got offered a 3 months contract with Extended Acute Care (doing Home IV and Home care).  It was pretty similar to what I did back home in Tassie.  They were are great bunch of people to work with, had some difficult days but pretty much I had a great time!!  We both got offered further work and they would have loved us to stay, but it wasn't meant to be! 

We decided to enrol the children at school.  They asked to go to school and we found an excellent local school, Belgian Gardens State School.  We arrived in time for the children to start term 4, with Charlotte in grade1 and Jake in prep.  I was worried about money at this stage, but school fees were only $50 for the both kids for the term.  Uniforms were going to be much more expensive than this but I cried poor and I bought from the second hand $5 bin!!!!  They settled in well and made lots of friends.  We were a little worried how Jake would go at full time school, but he had a great time.  Took a bit to get used to being back into the school routine.  On the days I worked the kids went to before and after school care at the local PCYC, which they loved. It was the last day of school today for the term, yah no more school runs and lunch boxes to make!!  (OK so I have been a bit slack in getting this blog posted)

Fancy Dress Party at the school.

We decided to stay at Rowes Bay Caravan Park, ended up being a great decision.  We have met a few other travelling families who are staying at the park, which is great.  Initially we met the Hambrooks, John, Bron, Brendan and Moggy who then introduced us to the Beeson Family, who ended up being great friends.  We have spent most of our free time hanging with these guys.  Its been amazing to make great mates, both for us and for the kids.  They have a 6  year old called Charlotte and a three year old called Meg.  Our kids have spent the last two months pretty much inseparable.  Not sure how its going to go when we leave!  These guys are from Victoria, which we won't hold against them!!!  Belinda's a nurse too and Marty's a  fitter.  The kids have spent many an hour playing Lego, swimming in the pool, playing at the playground and generally running a muck.  These guys are going to be our buddies for a long time, whether they like it or not!!!

It was warm enough most days, especially the days we walked home from school.  We pretty much lived in the pool, mind you before we left to come back to Tas, the pool had turned luck warm due to the heat.  Not so refreshing!  When we first arrived the kids swimming was OK, but by the time we left they had turned into little fish.  Jake especially came along heeps and heeps.  Am sure we are going to miss this when we head south.

Mark has always wanted to take the kids to a NBL basketball game.  Townsville has their own team, The Townsville Crocs.  We went along to one of their home games, was pretty entertaining.  I hadn't realised they play dance music during the game, made me giggle!

We were a little nervous about being so far North during the cyclone season.  After Yasi last year, there has been a big push on community awareness and preparation.  We went to a big cyclone exhibition on the foreshore, to improve our knowledge.  Plus Jimmy Giggle (from a kids ABC Show) was there to entertain the kids!!!

It constantly amazes me the availability of free places to take the kids in QLD.  River ways is one such place.  Its a swimming pool complex, kids playground, BBQ areas and walking tracks by the river.  We went with the Beesons

 We got to know a couple of the 'permanent' residents a the caravan park.  An older lady who lived behind us, Leslie, was lovely with the kids.  She came over one day before school and told us they were releasing injured turtles down at the beach.  I rush the kids, picked up Charlotte Beeson and headed down for a look.  Was really interesting for the kids, to listen to the team and learn about the turtles.  Unfortunately Jake had miss heard me.  He thought I said Ninja turtles, not injured turtles.  He was a little disappointed!!!  The news crews were there, they interviewed the two Charlotte's, but my Charlotte clammed up (she's a little shy).  Apparently we were on the news, but oopsy we kinda got distracted that night and forgot to watch the news.

We seemed to be spending our time in Townsville pretty much working and not seeing much, so we decided to head off for the night camping with the Beesons.  The day started off wrong with the Beesons having car trouble, so we left a bit late.  Then we filled up the diesel on tank 13 at the servo (Mark is pretty superstitious).  Not the best start to the day.  We headed to Walloman falls about two and half hours north/west of Townsville, then we planned to come back to Crystal Creek to camp the night.  We made it to the falls, and they were pretty amazing, its the longest single drop waterfall in Australia.  We did a little walk and took a few snaps  then headed off.  Somehow we ended up crashing the landcruiser.  We were going down a dirt road and lost it in the gravel.  We called the Beesons back and managed to get the cruiser out of the ditch.  It was pretty scary, but luckily we were all okay, I had a few bruises but that's it.  We decided to cancel the camping and head straight back to Townsville, luckily the cruiser was still drive able.  Then we spent the next two weeks arguing with the insurance company.  Who in the end decided it was too expensive to fix our darling car.  So they paid us out and we bought it back, so we can get it fixed in Tassie for a reasonable rate.

The damaged cruiser, sniff sniff

Marks mum Beth came to visit us, much to the kids delight.  They had a lovely time being spoilt rotten by Beth.  The kids had a couple of days off and we took Nannee around Townsville and showed her the local sights.  We also managed to fit in a night at the casino for dinner, an all you could eat buffet, was delicious.  The kids loved having another adults undivided attention, and Nan wasn't complaining.  She even semi adopted the Beesons from next door!  Was hard for everyone to say good bye, Nan was very brave.  Lucky we are seeing them in Tassie soon.

Christmas seemed to come around so quick this year.  I guess after we crashed the car, everything was a little stressed and complicated, Christmas wasn't high on the priority list.  Lucky we found our Chrissie spirit, well the kids made us.  We took the kids to see Santa and they actually both sat on his lap.  This hasn't happened since they were babies.  Made for a great photo for the family.  One of the gorgeous girls from my work was lovely enough loan us a small Chrissie tree ornaments and all.  So the kids could had a great time decorating it and the caravan.  Was nice to see them so excited.

 

The two Charlotte's busy with the tinsel

The extended family and Santa

The Strand at Townsville is a very popular place for tourists and locals to meet and spend time.  We have been here a lot over the last few months.  We took the kids for  a scooter ride, had a swim in the ocean (in the stinger netted area), and had an ice cream.  A pretty typical Far North Queensland Saturday!

One afternoon we headed to Pallaranda, about ten minutes down the road.  They have a great beach and an enclosed swimming area.  Of course we went with the Beeson tribe.  Was a fabulous idea on a hot day, had a nice cool down in the ocean.  We'd been pretty slack about beach time since we've been in Townsville.  Spending most days at the pool, meant we hadn't bothered with the beach much.

 

Mark took the kids to the Museum of Tropical Queensland,  I had to work, sniff sniff.  Lots of great hands on interactive things for the kids to do.  Apparently they had an awesome day, with Mark even being part of the cannonball show.

I'd been told by a patient at work we should check out an event called "stable on the Strand".  It was a Chrissie event, so thought it would be great.  What we didn't realise was that it was run by the local church groups and was pretty religious!  You can imagine how well we fitted in.  The kids had fun looking at everything, they had a free carousel ride and balloon animals etc.  They even had a manger with Mary and "a real life baby Jesus", Charlotte was enthralled!  Then we left and headed off for our farewell dinner. 

We have spent so much time with the Beesons, its been amazing and they are really amazing people.  After we crashed the car we spent a few weeks feeling sorry for ourselves.  They were there to cheer us up and were a major support.  Its times like these you realise what great friends you have.  As Belinda kept telling me (as she filled my wine glass), "Drink yourself a personality Amanda!"  We're going to miss these guys.  Even Marty when he kept annoyingly imitating my sweet sounding laugh!   So we had our farewell dinner at Outback Jacks, great food and awesome company.

Great mates, Check out Jake and Megs hand holding, just gorgeous!

 So its with sadness that we farewell Townsville.  We have had a great time.  Its certainly somewhere we will visit again.  We worked hard but still had lots of time to meet some great friends and make some more fabulous memories.  Bar the car crash of course!  So now we have headed home to Tassie for Christmas.  The Landcruiser went home on the back of a car carrier and the caravan went on a tipper truck to Brisbane.  Where we have left it at Redland Bay with our lovely friends Meg and Lee.  So we will spend the next few weeks catching up with friends and family, so we're pretty excited!!  Plus Mark has work while we are home, so we will recoup a few funds too.  So the Travelling Long adventure will be on hold for just a while but we will definitely be back on the road soon.  Our plan is to head north again to pick up the van, then work somewhere in Southern QLD for a few months.  Then head north and meet our friends the Ellis family and spend some time in Far North QLD and Cape York then to NT.  Well that's the plan, but they change so you never know!!!!