Tin Can Bay

Well we had a lovely stay in Townsville. It really is a neat place which has lots of contradictions within it. The main street has been closed to traffic and has a stage built in the middle of it - so I figure it would be a fantastic place to be when there is some good live entertainment happening. They have some new high rise buildings in the centre of town but are now starting to restore the old original building at one end of the main street which are really neat and will look fantastic once they are all back in good shape.

It has a great marina - not any beaches as such that we saw - more estruary's - but hey I'm sure the locals know where the good beaches are - mind you - still have the worry of stingers and croc's. In the City centre there are these huge rock hills/mountains/bluffs - not sure what you'd call them but all the houses etc seem to be built on this ruggard looking rock - really cool - not flat like most other locations around it.

We were then heading to Airlie Beach (gateway to Whitsunday). Drove in and had a look around but decided not to stay as the camp fee's were crazy $50.00 per night for a power site when normally we are paying about $30.00. It looks like it would really pump with the crowds - and once again some super shopping! We carried on and stayed at Prosperpine which is an inland town built mainly to service the sugar cane factory and rural farmers. We went for a walk in the evening and all the smoke and steam that the sugar cane factory pumps out makes a fine mist that sits over the whole town - wouldn't like to live there permanently as it didn't feel healthy - the house roofs etc had a black layer over them from the smog! but hey the town folk were super friendly and we had a good night there. One thing that was really different was: I walked over to the ablution block at about 6.00pm and there was this older chap walking out with a torch - he said to me I'm looking out for the snakes and I just laughed not knowing what he was on about - then later both Mike and I went back over to the loo's and when I came out Mike pointed out a sign in the laundry that said " Due to wet and dry conditions there had been a number of snakes sighted in the camp and that we were not to approach them (Yeh Right!!) and to notify the management. Honestly that put a whole new fear factor into going to the toilet during the night! Scary stuff!! Needless to say we didn't see one - thank goodness.

Did a big haul from Prosperpine to Yappoon (east of Rockhampton) stayed a couple of nights there - what a lovely spot - it has real sand on it similar to the beaches back home - white and course - not soft and squeaky! This is one of those lovely holiday area's that you can just see is ready to take off - if there was an international flight into Rockhampton - it would boom overnight. Would be well worth investing in if you wanted a nice holiday home.

Our next big haul was today - we drove from Yappoon to Tin Can Bay (just east of Gympie = 6 hours). I understand it got the name Tin Can Bay from manufacturing HOLDENS here (sorry just couldn't resist - stirring you Holden/GM lovers). Cool little place will have a good look around tomorrow as it was 4.00pm before we got here today. In the morning we can go down and buy some food to feed the dolphins off the rocks - how cool is that!

Well that has bought you all back up to date with what we are up to and where we are. We will move down to Colundra on Tuesday then spend Wednesday and Thursday night in Brisbane before hitting the Gold Coast on Friday