SUNDAY 5 JULY     TAYLORS BEACH TO TOWNSVILLE     140kms

We got out of that site a good deal easier than we got in! Helped by the fact that the people on the opposite site had departed early. Their large 4WD and boat on its trailer, had been parked in the road in front of the site and they hadn’t offered to move it when we were trying to back in last week.

Won’t be going back to Taylors Beach. Apart from being unimpressed with the park, there wasn’t much for people like us to do in the area.

It was a rather routine run back to Townsville. There seemed to be a lot of vans going north. We were definitely bucking the trend.

We stopped at a produce stall near Ingham and bought passionfruit, beans, bananas, potatoes.

Woodlands Big 4 Holiday Park was the one I’d noted as looking good as we came north, recently. It was on the northern fringe of the city.

Our powered site was much better than I expected, given it had been the last one left. It cost $27 a night, after discount, for the week, and $31.50 for the extra night. It was quite large and easy to get into. There was no slab, just grass, which was fine by us. The site had afternoon shade. It backed onto a cabin and was not too far from the amenities, which were of the individual bathroom style – very new and very nice. TV reception was excellent, so John was happy, and there were three bars on the phone, so internet was alright too. The pool looked quite inviting too.

By the time we were set up, it was late afternoon. We went for a walk around the park. It had a number of permanent dwellers in a section away from us. There were a couple of rows of ensuite tourist sites, too, but those sites were much smaller than the one we were on.

The fridge seemed to have worked normally today. Grrrr!

I made Atlantic salmon patties for tea.

There was a program called MasterChef on TV tonight, that we watched for the first time. I was probably the last person in the nation to discover it, given my usual lack of interest in things TV. But I really enjoyed it. They cooked a whole salmon and a chocolate-y dessert. I kept thinking that, back in 2005, when I was trying to convert this home cook into a professional seeming remote area caterer, I really could have done with having watched a program like this! Not that I had whole Atlantic salmon – or any Atlantic salmon, for that matter, but I might have picked up some good tips for the whole barramundi and threadfin salmon that I did have up there. I would continue to watch that program, for sure.