17th September Townsville

A special day! Its Christy's Birthday 🎂🎂🎂. It's been lovely chatting to her this morning. Both our girls and their children are meeting up for time together to celebrate.
They wouldn't want either of us there as we have 'quarantined our caravan......Brian has the flu & I have the sore throat. Have just been to the 7 Days per week Super Clinic and both been given antibiotics....here's hoping.

We are enjoying the weather up here, after all, that's what we came for.
Our first few days were great as there were people here that we had met in Mareeba. Trish & John had a combie bus so they came with us up Saddle Mountain to the Heritage Tea Rooms in what was The Eureka Hotel, the oldest known building in North Queensland. It's a long way up but appears gradual, that is, until coming down, then it is considered as very steep because it's such a long way especially for trucks. We will go up that way with the caravan when we leave here beginning of October and go again to Fletcher's Creek before starting our trip south.
We went for scones, jam & cream and were not disappointed, they were stunning. It was very interesting & had a best craft shop I've been in, have got some new ideas.
We have had trip to Townsville CITY, golly it's big. We had a meal at the Casino with Janet & John from Ballarat ( saw them last in a Cooktown) , it's great catching up with folk you know.
The Strand is beautiful, Brian had a walk along it one day while I visited a shopping centre, but he found it very hot.
We have a craft group in the community area on Monday mornings & I was shown a cute casual handbag.......so I had to have one.....Called at a Vinnies Super Store (huge) and got a pair of size 0 jeans with elastic in top. As they were not lined, I also fought a red apron to use as lining.
First cut off the legs, these are then cut up to make the shoulder strap. Then stitch in the lining and sew up the bottom. It's such a cute 'Jeans hand bag' with its little pockets etc. It would be easy with a sewing machine but rewarding to do by hand.
We have been The Brothers Club (Nation Rugbt League) their club is 'Cowboys' and like The Tigers in Melbourne (Aussie Rules) they are in 'The Semi Finals' everyone is excited.
We have another 2 weeks here, first....get over these colds, then more lovely places to go.
We were only staying 30 days,but.......then there are the 2 Grand Finals on for both Football codes so....we are staying the extra day to be sure of good TV reception. 🏉🏉🏉🏉🏉🏉🏉🏉🏉
You really have to live in Australia to appreciate the hype!

2nd September 2017 Townsville

Well, I have some catching up to do.....
From Atherton we went to Tully.
The drive from Atherton to here this morning has been the most glorious, uplifting, spiritual, joyous part of our trip. The beauty of the mountains, tablelands, sugar, bananas. Oh yes I'm raving on.... I guess you get the message. Oh how I love it all. We were here 2 years ago & stayed at South Mission Beach & did all the  Tourist  things. This year we have thoroughly enjoyed doing a lot of it again. We signed in at the Tourist Information Centre to stay 2 nights at the Showgrounds for free. A great concrete site, toilets, dump and water available. We drove out to beautiful Mission Beach, then out to Tully Heads. We were able to sit outside our van and watch the white smoke from the Sugar Mill. We were facing the main road into the town from the Bruce Highway so watched trucks moving the sugar and the waste products out and the trains bringing the cane in for processing. We went through the mill last trip. It was great seeing the machines cutting the cane, loading it into the train bins and the trains  moving it on their special tracks. I went into the town & was silly enough to go into a Homeware Shop that had the most amazing array of gadgets I have ever seen, very high quality with prices to match! No I only drooled, I didn't buy. Then I went to Vinnies & bought a top for $2! 😁.
Then the aromas from the bakery tempted me, well it was afternoon tea time! That's my excuse.
I was telling the sales lady how much I loved the trip from Atherton to Tully, and a man came in and asked for "His daily bread". .......when I went to the car he came up to me and spoke about my expressions of the trip & then added 'You sound as if you are a Christian' & I responded 'So are you' & he asked 'How do you know?' answer, you asked for your daily bread!. He is the CEO of Vinnies & does a lot of the home visits for delivering aid to outlying families. He was telling me about one visit where the woman was amazed that he drove 170k and his response to that was "Jesus went a lot further to Calvery for our salvation." It was a privilege to meet him.
We also had a lovely trip up the Tully Gorge the wonderful variety of trees and every shade of green. Even typing this my very 'being' thrills at the mountains, the trees, the sugar cane, the bananas, and I must include the warmth.
The day before we left Atherton the latest 'Grey Nomad' email came with an article on an over 50s Caravan Park in Townsville........well we changed our plans and have come here , booked for 30 days. It is purely over 50s, Black River Stadium, 27 k out of the CBD. It's only 7k off the Bruce Hwy, very secure, huge sites & $30 per night BUT.....if you book for 30 days, you only pay for 24 😁😁😁😁. It's very community, some people come year after year for the winter. We are testing it.
The facilities are exceptionally good, hot, hot showers, great kitchen set up that any one can use & they put on meals at lease weekly. This Sunday, Fathers Day, they have a chief cooking a meal, $5 a plate! 😁😁. We have booked.
Bye for now, off the 'Happy Hour'.