Townsville: Castle Hill, Reef HQ, V8 Supercars

Townsville is the one of the last cities you'll visit while travelling north up the Eastern Coast.
Jeni and I took it pretty easy here, we first stayed with a friend from back home and then we caught up with a bloke I went to school with for a couple of years and hadn't seen in almost 15 years!
Had a lot of great nights having some beers whilst trying to remember stupid things we did, was great! Was also good having a solid location to watch the second game of Origin, despite how bad QLD slaughtered NSW! Bring on game 3!


The Strand is a great place for a jog or stroll, but another great spot is Castle Hill. Some fitness fanatics use the hill for training, walking, jogging and riding up the steep incline whilst others engage in other fitness activities up the top. For us we drove up the top, had lunch and enjoyed a few short strolls whilst admiring the amazing views all around Townsville. A beautiful spot with something for everyone!

Townsville is also home to Reef HQ and we decided to venture through to celebrate Jeni's birthday! Reef HQ is an amazing Aquarium where you can get close up with all sorts of amazing reef fish, sharks and turtles. The aquarium also works as a Turtle hospital working to rehabilitate huge sea turtles. One particular turtle had finished being all fixed up and was happily swimming through one of the aquariums. Seeing them from a boat is one thing, but seeing these things swim overhead is beautiful.
Throughout the aquarium is a variety of different themes, fresh water turtles can be seen, deep sea critters zipping about, seahorses and even a little saltwater shark calls Reef HQ home.

Another awesome thing about Queensland is Sizzler, we made sure we got a mad feed in to continue celebrating Jeni's birthday, unlimited awesome salad and dessert bar? Don't mind if I do! What is a Queensland trip without a trip to Sizzler?

We happened to still be in Townsville during the time the V8's tore up the track, scoring some free tickets from another friend I went to school with briefly, score!
I had been to Bathurst a few times as a young child but had no appreciation for the power these vehicles could muster up. Several races through the day caught our eye, including the Utes and the Porches, but the V8 Supercar really took the cake!
Was pretty sweet sitting trackside trying to keep an eye on these things fly by! Definitely a lot faster than when I was a youngen.
We also bumped into the Crackup Sisters, those girls seem to be everywhere! No idea what they were doing, but as they cruised by us in their comical undersized vehicle we were sure to slap them a high five!

other highlight of the day was sitting behind the wheel of the new 2013 SSS, quite a sexy car indeed. Smaller engine than the old one but stock turbo on a 1.6 sounds a lot of fun, on the inside felt very similar to the old one, just leather trim and all the fancy pants dash stuff of modern cars, will have to take one for a spin sometime!
As the sun went down and the engines stopped roaring, the bands started playing, we stayed and listened to a few tunes before calling it a day!

Cheers Townsville for the good times! Will see you again, hopefully a bit sooner this time!

- Cameron