After visiting Paronella Parks, Townsville was our next destination. In Queensland it is quite a challenge to make a decision what to see and what to leave out. We decided to stay mostly along the coast to get as much beach life as possible. Making detours inland cost a bit too much time and kilometer at the moment. That’s why we missed out on Australia’s highest waterfall, Wallmann Falls. But 50 km of gravel road was a bit too much for our time budget.
Bingil Bay
That’s why, after leaving Paronella Park, we drove back to the coast and after only 40 km we arrived at our next destination: beautiful Bingil Bay. Here you can find a small campground with only 8 spots – and all of them have an ocean view… Location, location, location 😎
There is nothing much to do here, except strolling along the beach. Besides that, we did a bit of blogging and just enjoyed ourselves.
Blogging with a view
The next day we drove further South and came across Hinchinbrook Island. The whole island is a national park and I assume you could probably do hikes for a whole week there. Unfortunately, we only had time for the lookout from the mainland.
Hinchinbrook Island seen from the road
Breakfast at Five Mile Creek
Hinchinbrook Lookout
Hinchinbrook Lookout
Taylors Beach Holiday Park
Next stop: Taylors Beach Holiday Park. And here we drove for the umpteenth time through endless sugar cane plantations. This really seems to be a whole industry in Queensland. The good sugar cane is then turned into rum, so maybe we can support the local industry on our trip 😉
Sugar cane plantations
Taylors Beach welcomed us with a very relaxed atmosphere. Those who spend a longer holiday here are probably rather interested in fishing. As the sea here is very tide dependent, there is still enough time to relax even for anglers.
Low tide
(half) high tide
Townsville
Townsville offers all the advantages of a tourist town. A beautiful marina, a great promenade and the Magnetic Island in front of it are just a few of them.
We were really lucky with the choice of our accommodation! First of all we got the penultimate free spot; it was a V8 motorsport race in Townsville and almost everything was fully booked. Secondly it was a really nice camping site. We had a washbasin, toilet and a separate shower – and all that together in a single cabin 🙂 After almost 6 months “on the road” you learn to appreciate such things again!
Bathroom cabin links of our Queen
The campsite was called Townsville Tourist & Lifestyle Village and was just outside the city. And hard to believe: When we asked at the reception for the best way into the city they put us in their private car and drove us to the next shopping center. From here, it was no problem to get into the city centre by bus (even if the bus took longer because of the V8 road closures).
Unfortunately the weather was not as good as we had hoped. So we cut the sightseeing part short, walked along the promenade and then stopped off at the beach bar “Longboard” (named after a Hawaiian beer). That’s why there is no beer in Hawaii… because we drink it here in Australia 😉
(for non-germans: this is a reference to a German song by Paul Kuhn, see English explanation here)
Magnetic Island in the background
At least we could see Magnetic Island from time to time, emerging in fog and drizzle.
The beach bar had of course also wine on offer… and also Gin Tonic. And if you know us a bit, you can probably guess, what happened…
Luckily, we didn’t try their tequila 😂
So despite the sunny weather, we spent the following day in our campervan – slightly hungover. That’s why we missed out on Australia’s most northern Koala colony on Magnetic Island. But as we already travelled through other states in Australia, we have seen many of them before. And so we skipped the ferry trip to Magnetic Island 😄.
