Our first day in Townsville was to get our new scooters out and take them for a workout, we were very excited to do our first test run. The foreshore in Townsville known as The Strand was the perfect spot. We went for miles and although some teething issues with the scooters we had a great time and went so much further than we could of if we had been walking. We stopped for sightseeing. coffee and lunch , what a great day. The ride went from the strand to the Rowes Bay art area.
After the scooter ride we walked up to the Jezzine Barracks, north on the Strand, a precinct celebrating military and Aborginal hertiage on the headland overlooking the sea and the strand and over to Charlie Hill Lookout. (this is in the video)
Castle Hill lookout was a steep climb by car. Some younger people were walking up , but no thanks it was heart attack territory. We just did the additional stairs and loop walks at the top. The views over Townsville where 360 degree and amazing, we were up 300 m from the bottom. You can see Magnetic island and the Footie stadium in the backgrounds.
One day was for chores and John had taken one of the scooters for a ride to check a few things on it in the morning. All checked out ok on his ride but the following day we took the scooters out again for a long ride along the Ross River and found my scooter was low in power and rougher to ride over bumps, due to having solid rubber tyres than Johns and the speedo screen couldn’t be read in the sun. So it was back to Ayr to swap it over for one like Johns. The scooters originally had both the same model numbers on the boxes but turned out to be very different scooters, many features and the tyres were different. Very weird.
On our final day in Townsville we went to Cape Pallarenda, an area used in the war for a fort lookout and quantantine area, built in 1943. The walk to the forts and other walks were closed for maintenance, so we scootered the foreshore again going back towards Townsville to close to where we finished out first scooter ride at Rowes Bay.
Townsville was a great place for scooting with many paths everywhere and all very scenic. See J
Magnetic island
We took the ferry across and hired a car for the day. I should say we hired a piece of shit with spongy brakes, a cluncky gear box, holes in the muffler and bald tyres, the hire price was more than the cars worth but we made it around the Island with out it falling apart. Below is leaving Townsville on the right and arriving at Magnetic Is on the left..
Our first stop was near Geoffrey bay to see the Wallabies, dozens of them, which were there in amongst the rocks and they would let you feed them grass. They were not at all timid and very cute. One had a baby in her pouch and others were also very young.
See johns video on the island for more footage
We then travelled to other vantage points and bays spending most out time at Horseshoe bay where we had a swim inside the stinger netted area, walked along the beach and had lunch. The parrotts tried to join us for lunch getting overfriendly and trying to get to our drinks.
After lunch we visited a forest area that had millions of butterflies, it was a winter resting place for them and they flew everywhere around you.
Then we explore Nellys bay, Hawkings point and Picnic Bay before returning the car and catching the Ferry back to Townsville.
