I am the happy snapper of our holiday. Israel is far more the considered photographer and has taken some amazing landscapes, some of which we will share in our Recipes from The Bus Cookbook. But I love the memories I am capturing happily – all the time – everywhere we go. In this post I share with your some of my happy snaps from our Family Tour Diary of Townsville, Hughenden and Richmond.
Far North Queensland has been amazing, and we ended our time in this region in beautiful Townsville. This trip has really taught me a lot about geography. For some reason, I had always thought of Townsville as more inland. I never realised it was a beautiful coastal town. Townsville Tourist and Lifestyle Village was our base whilst we were in Townsville. It’s run by a lovely family who have built the park into a real village atmosphere with the swimming pool and camp kitchen areas being the hubs for socialising. The kids relished being able to swim in the pool and once again, we met a couple of lovely families with kids. One of the best things about our trip has been watching our kids grow and feel comfortable talking to lots of people of different backgrounds and ages.
Crocodiles and stingers inhabit the waters of Far North Qld, so not being able to swim in the beautiful blue waters is something we’ve struggled with. We’re so used to be able to swim at beaches along the coast, but with that said, we did manage to get out for a swim in the ocean in Townsville. The water temperature was like being in a bath. Even though there was the big sign on the foreshore saying stingers in red, there were lots of people out, so we thought it was a safe bet. Happy to report it was.
Reef HQ
We are so blessed to have so many incredible supporters of our mission who reach out and offer us accommodation, tickets to events and more. One of our lovely supporters, Sally, arranged a family pass to Reef HQ for us. What an amazing learning experience the day out was. We walked amongst many of the fish of the Great Barrier Reef in the glass underwater tunnel – it which was magical. We also watched a diving show, a feeding show of different varieties of fish and crocodiles, and visited the Sea Turtle Hospital.
Here’s just some of the things we learnt:
- sharks are Apex predators, meaning if they die out, then the food chain of the ocean collapses. This means the next biggest fish would take over, eventually eating the next smallest fish, and so on.
- humans are the biggest predators to sharks. Around the world, humans kill 200 million sharks per year.
- sharks have lots of teeth in two rows. They are jaggard like saws so when they thrash their head from side to side, it essentially saws whatever it’s got hold of.
- in the ocean, smaller fish play an important role cleaning bigger fish. We watched as they went underneath the gills of the bigger fish to eat the parasites that were living on the bigger fish. This really fascinated Rilien – he even wrote a journal and drew a picture about it for school.
- the safest way to walk into the ocean in the areas of The Great Barrier Reef. It’s really important to wear covered shoes (preferably waterproof) and to scoot your feet along the floor of the sand bed. This causes vibrations that move marine life such as sting rays out of the way.
- how to safely touch a star fish and which shells are safe to touch, plus those which are not.
- how us humans are injuring sea life by the rubbish we are letting get into our waterways. We visited the Sea Turtle hospital and met 2 sea turtles recovering from swallowing plastic bags.
- Nemo fish are born male, and the strongest one turns into a female.
- salt water crocodiles can jump really high and quickly to get their food – Yikes – even the small one we saw was frightening.
The message about climate change and the impact it is having on the reef was loud and clear, and again Indrani started to ask what she can do about it. She feels the weight of what’s happening to the world very deeply. She is thinking of different ways she can get kids like herself more active in making a difference. What’s really frightening, is that back in 1969, the year I was born, there was concern expressed about the way us humans were treating the planet and the impact we’d have. Zoom in and read this newspaper article.
Tropical North Qld Museum
Museums are the best places to take kids – seriously. If you think they are boring, then think again. Just about every museum we have visited has been so interactive for kids, it’s so easy to have fun whilst learning. Be careful – it’s very easy to lose a whole day in a museum. Tropical North Qld’s museum is no different. And it was a real bonus because they had Lego’s Towers of Tomorrow Exhibition on and this included using clues to find Lego Minifigs strategically placed in every exhibition in the museum.
At this museum, some of the things we learnt were:
- how Lego was made
- all about the ship wreck Pandora, her crew and how she came to be ship wrecked
- how convicts were shackled in Pandora’s box (the kids got to put on the shackles and to try and stand up)
- the 150 year history of Townsville
- about how ability to see colours underwater changes by the depth at which your in the water
- the different living creatures
Hughenden
We’ve all been excited about our next leg of our trip – Hughenden and Richmond because it’s all part of the Australian Dinosaur Trail which we started last school holidays (July) when we went to The Australian Age of Dinosaurs and The Dinosaur Stampede out near Winton.
It was about a 4.5 hour drive from Townsville. Some friends we made in Townsville gave us the tip off to visit a little pub at a town called Prairie on the way. The town of Prairie has a population of 41 people (that includes a new baby born last week) and certainly the most unique pub we’ve ever visited. At the bar sat two mannequins, fully dressed. We didn’t realise they were mannequins at first. Out the front there was a beautiful table set up underneath a chandelier. The town is rich in history and in the late 1880’s it was thriving. It used to be a horse change station for Cobb and Co, so the mail coaches would call into town, change over their horses and move on. Subsequently the pub features lots of saddles and hats, plus some other quirky memorabilia. It also has it’s own ghost story. It was a fascinating quirky pub so we decided to stay overnight – we parked outside and had dinner in their beautiful dining room.
The next day we got up and drove the last hour to Hughenden. We parked at the $6 a night RV camp, got out our pushies and road into town. Aside from being rich in dinosaur history, this town is also famous for being a site where a tree was blazed (marked) when a search party were trying to find the missing Burke and Wills Expedition. We were also fortunate enough to be in town on the same night as Queensland Ballet’s Tutu’s on Tour were in town. So we also had an evening of culture at Hughenden Diggers. We all loved the Ballet – it was a great mix of contemporary ballet, and traditional with some comedy (through body language) thrown in too. Here’s our pics from Hughenden.
The next day we got up bright and early, packed our lunchboxes and hiking snacks, and took the drive out to Porcupine Gorge. This gorge is known for being Australia’s mini Grand Canyon. It did not disappoint. AMAZING! And we hiked down to the bottom of a different part of the Gorge called Pyramid Rock – you’ll see why in the photos. We swam in one of the water holes, the water was fresh but it’s one of those things you endure for the kids (interpret this as so you don’t have to deal with the nagging of come in…). Mind you, it’s been so dry, that not many of the water holes had water in them so we were fortunate to be able to do this. The hike down was long and steep. And remember folks, if you hike down, you have to hike up. We have learnt all sorts of techniques to help get a 6 year old’s legs to want to make it all the way back up to the top of our hikes:-))
Richmond
The drive from Hughenden to Richmond is only a short 1.5 hours, so we arrived here early in the day. Richmond has a free RV camp so we found ourselves a spot there, got out our bikes and rode into town. If Hughenden was rich in history of dinosaurs, Richmond is off the hook insane! Words can not explain Kronosaurus Korner and the fossils housed here. The place is called Kronosaurus Korner because it was at Richmond where two Americans discovered nearly all the bones of a Kronosaurus dinosaur – 11 metres long. The bones were taken back to America, where it took 25 years to assemble the bones.
After spending a few hours here, we went back the bus for rest. I made us a picnic dinner, we packed up and drove out to a free fossil hunting site. We did some fossicking (found nothing but it was fun) and then watched the sun go down over the quarry whilst we ate our picnic dinner.