Townsville

We decided to take advantage of the Big 4 kids club which was from 9.30am - 12.00 - awesome 2 1/2 hours kid free! After breakfast we started packing up. Rick had to run a couple of errands for Chris so he took off at 8.30am. I dropped Caitlin & Cooper off at kids club and Rick returned. We had a big downpour but it didn't last too long. We went into Airlie for a wander around the market on the foreshore. Rick gave the car and van a quick wash then we picked the kids up and grabbed some lunch at the bakery before heading north towards Bowen. The drive was slow going as we got stuck behind a number of Army trucks. We knew we were nearly there when we passed the Big Mango. Bowen is the second largest vegetable producer in Queensland, mainly mangoes and tomatoes. We drove to the info centre on the front beach and the newly developed foreshore. The info centre was closed but there was a large display about Bowen's involvement in the filming of Australia in 2008 where it was a stand in location for 1930s Darwin. In World War 2, Catalinas were maintained and serviced here. We were planning to stay here as there were meant to be beautiful beaches but we were all happy to keep driving so we continued on to Townsville - another 2 hours. We arrived in Townsville around 4.30pm and found our way to Rowes Bay Caravan Park which seemed to be one of the closest to the city centre. It was strange driving into a large city with multi story buildings - we have been avoiding most of them. The caravan park was full but we were offered an unpowered site and warned to keep everything locked as there had been problems with thieves raiding vans left unlocked - great!
I made a risotto in the thermomix for dinner.