Close EncountAyrs ...

Day 17: Easter Monday 9 April (8pm, Ayr)

Another day in Townsville and with most places closed for the long weekend, we thought we’d spend the first hour of this morning exploring whatever was on the other side of the Strand. This was quite a fortuitous move on my part as we discovered Soroptimist Park – not on the usual tour of Townsville, but for me, who’d been hoping to visit a couple of art galleries and found that all of them were closed today, this was an unplanned thrill, as it was a park full of art - mosaics in the footpath, a metal sculpture on the sand bank, a’Nessie’ along the bike path, a group of rock fish – really lovely park.

View from Castle Hill

A ‘must do’ on the whistlestop tour of Townsville is a drive to the top of Castle Hill and we managed this one today as well.  Once there, a few further climbs are available so we picked one and in the unbelievable heat (we're so much closer to the sun up here!), we discovered some of the most awesome views of Townsville, Magnetic Island and the many miles of coastline visible from here. Gorgeous.

Not for the faint hearted!

We also knew of a lesser known WW2 remnant on Castle Hill which had been recommended to us, so on the way back down we stopped off and took a little trip off the usual path. Some careful footsteps were required but we eventually found the odd looking bunker and what we were after and the bonus was a few friends inside – they might be hard to make out in this photo as it was pitch black, but I held my camera as still as possible for about 6 seconds to catch them. Steve suggested they thought he was Bruce Wayne. I imagine they don’t get many visitors so we were as much a treat for them as they were for us! We left feeling a huge buzz that we'd had such an unexpected encounter - haven't been able to stop thinking about them for the rest of the day.

Spinderella - street art in front of Reef HQ

Reef HQ, otherwise known as the Townsville aquarium, was our final stop for today and well worth the visit. Loads of beautiful sea creatures to admire, including sea turtles which reminded me of the turtles we’re supposed to be tagging next weekend. It’s amazing how relaxing watching a coral trout go round in circles can be! No way could I eat seafood tonight for dinner though! This place was lots of fun for little and big kids alike as there were lots of activities to do along the way. Steve managed to get a photo of me inside an old divers chamber and I got one of him in the middle of a tank of clown fish (Nemo's). Thankfully, too silly to paste in such a no-nonsense blog like this! :)

Well, it's been a great weekend, but Steve leaves and I go back to work in the morning - John and Eddie are away, so it should be an interesting week ahead with Lynette and Michaela. Organised? Quiet? Relaxed? Not sure but with a weekend of discussion and contemplation behind me and a clear week ahead, I’m eager to get stuck into finalising the template for their business proposals and pulling that RAP together. Here goes … !