Stuck in Townsville
After leaving Airlie beach, we made our way up to Townsville in the pouring rain. We were just using the town as a stopping-off point for one night. We then had a decision to make - should we go to Mission Beach? Should we go to Magnetic Island? Should we go straight to Cairns and spend an extra night there?
As we woke, though, it became clear that the answer would be - none of the above. Due to the heavy rain, during which 300mm of rain had fallen in Townsville in the previous two days, the roads out of the town were flooded and we were going nowhere. This was Thursday morning, and we have told that this would be the case until Sunday at the earliest. This has been the worst weather in the area for ten or twelve years, and caught everyone unprepared.
Townsville is the biggest settlement in the Northern Queensland area, but it is still not very big, and there is certainly not enough there to keep us occupied for four days. We do now know everything there is to know about the shipwreck of the HMS Pandora, from the extensive displays at the Museum of Tropical Queensland. Pie knows how to fire a cannon. We will look into the options to escape; possibly we will take a flight to Cairns if they are running. For now we have some relaxing time.
Every cloud does have a silver lining though… We had spotted that a lot of Australian pubs have a ‘trivia night’, their name for a ‘pub quiz’. So far we had not managed to be in any town on the night that the quiz was advertised. But as we were stuck in Townsville on the Thursday night, it meant that we could attend the Thursday night trivia night at Molly Malone’s. Sadly, it wasn’t a great quiz, and we didn’t win anything, but at least it satisfied my desire for a pub quiz for a few weeks!
As we woke, though, it became clear that the answer would be - none of the above. Due to the heavy rain, during which 300mm of rain had fallen in Townsville in the previous two days, the roads out of the town were flooded and we were going nowhere. This was Thursday morning, and we have told that this would be the case until Sunday at the earliest. This has been the worst weather in the area for ten or twelve years, and caught everyone unprepared.
Townsville is the biggest settlement in the Northern Queensland area, but it is still not very big, and there is certainly not enough there to keep us occupied for four days. We do now know everything there is to know about the shipwreck of the HMS Pandora, from the extensive displays at the Museum of Tropical Queensland. Pie knows how to fire a cannon. We will look into the options to escape; possibly we will take a flight to Cairns if they are running. For now we have some relaxing time.
Every cloud does have a silver lining though… We had spotted that a lot of Australian pubs have a ‘trivia night’, their name for a ‘pub quiz’. So far we had not managed to be in any town on the night that the quiz was advertised. But as we were stuck in Townsville on the Thursday night, it meant that we could attend the Thursday night trivia night at Molly Malone’s. Sadly, it wasn’t a great quiz, and we didn’t win anything, but at least it satisfied my desire for a pub quiz for a few weeks!
posted by Gaz man at 12:59 am
1 Comments:
Probably best you didn't go to magnetic island. When you'd have gotten back, you'd probably have found all your credit cards would have been wiped! :-) See you in Auckland (unless you're still stuck in Townsville...)
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