I Spoke Too Soon About Avoiding Disappointment

Our next stop after the Whitsundays was Townsville.  It is touted as the ‘big city’ of north Queensland but it was hardly a city and the rain that had plagued us the previous few days followed us.  Adding insult to injury, this normally 90 degree tropical town experienced their coldest day in May while we were there.  Now, to be fair, it was still in the mid 60s but it was surprisingly chilly and made the water too cold to snorkel.  Despite all that, Alex and I were still determined to have a good time but, in all honesty, our adventures here were pretty terrible.  We had originally booked two nights there but ended up extending our time an addition two nights because we saw a brochure for a YHA on a Koala Sanctuary on the nearby Magnetic that we wanted to stay at but not until the weekend when the weather was supposed to improve. 

We didn’t do much the day we arrived.  While we were waiting to check in we walked down to the beachfront walk they call ‘The Strand’ and had lunch on the water.  We also eyed Castle Hill, the big mountain smack in the center of town, (much like Camelback in Arizona) but decided to tackle it the next day.  The next day was cold and rainy so we went to the Reef HQ Museum, featuring the largest coral reef tank in the world, and the Tropical Museum of Queensland.  The history museum wasn’t much but it was interesting and had a fun children’s learning area that kept us entertained for over an hour (as you can see from the photo below). 

Sadly, the Reef HQ was dilapidated and a big disappointment.  The indoor reef was huge and they had a large predator tank but exhibits were leaking and the tanks were dirty so it didn’t live up to the hype of the brochures and travel books.  After spending our morning indoors, we headed out to tackle Castle Hill via the ‘goat tracks’ that started nearby where we were staying.  The walk was steep and I’ll admit to being passed by a 70 year old man on the way up (when I cringed as he passed us, he casually mentioned he’d done the walk once or twice before, as though that made me feel any better) but it felt good and we had beautiful views of the ‘city’ and surrounding areas, including Magnetic Island, from the top.  You may notice in the photo that Castle Hill looks like it’s been tagged, we thought it was graffiti when we first saw it, but it’s not, it’s the Townsville Saint and has been there since the 1970s.  Apparently, for the locals, it’s as much a beloved part of Castle Hill as the hill itself. 

Now, I’m sure you’re all thinking ‘well that doesn’t sound so bad’, and it wasn’t, but I haven’t gotten to the lowlight of our stay yet either.  With the extra two days to kill, and Townsville thoroughly explored, we decided to rent a car and check out some of the inland attractions a few hours away.  Paluma and Walloman Falls both looked gorgeous and worth the drive so the first day we set out in our small Hyundai hatchback anticipating a great drive and beautiful sites.  Boy did we overestimate how our day was going to go.  It wasn’t a sunny day but it wasn’t raining when we left Townsville.  When we got to the bottom of the mountains by the Falls though, it had started sprinkling and by the time we got halfway to the top, the rain had picked up, along with the clouds, and we should have known what we were in for.  The fog made for a cool drive through the tropical forest but when we got to the top, this was our view…

You could hear the water rushing over the Falls but you couldn’t see ANYTHING.  And as if that weren’t bad enough, even the hiking path was closed so we had driven all that way for, literally, nothing.  At that point though, we were both still in good spirits and had a good laugh.  It would figure that would be our luck, right?!  Before I move on, so you can get the full irony, here’s a photo of a photo of what we should have seen at Walloman Falls.

From there we decided to take the scenic drive talked about in our brochure to Paluma through Mt. Fox and Hidden Valley.  Now, I should mention that it explicitly stated in our rental car agreement that we were not allowed to drive on unpaved roads, probably because our Hyundai sat low to the ground and wasn’t made for any rough terrain.  We didn’t pay that clause any mind (in my own defense, Alex was the one who signed the rental contract, not me) and the unpaved roads to Walloman Falls weren’t anything too rustic or bad for the car, thought it was clear early on that we’d have to visit a carwash before returning it.  So as we neared Mt. Fox and the paved road ended, we didn’t think anything of it and plowed ahead. 

To give you an idea of distance, Mt. Fox was 30km from Walloman Falls and it was another 47km (about 29 miles) to Paluma.  We were 15km on the other side of Mt. Fox before the road became very hazardous and we wondered if we’d missed a turn and ended up on someone’s unmaintained private access road through their property (for those of you at home, it was worse than Wilderness Road on a bad day).  About that time, we came upon a man on a dirt bike and asked if we were in fact on a real road.  He scoffed at us and replied yes as though we were complete morons, even though sections of the road were flooded and large trenches had been gouged from the rains.  Now, I’m from the country and have been on some torn up gravel roads but I’d never been on one this bad and I should have known better than to keep on driving.  But for some reason, we just kept telling ourselves it was going to end soon and the paved road would be just over this next hill (why? because a random stranger told us it was a real road?!)  I know, I know, it’s times like these a little common sense would come in handy. 

The harrowing drive continued for what seemed like forever, at one point we drove into a huge gully and weren’t sure if the car would make it through the flooded section or back up the hill on the other side, but we made it (surprisingly).  In the end it took us more than two hours to drive the remaining 32km (roughly 20 miles) to Paluma and we somehow missed the Hidden Valley (guess it was indeed well hidden).  Now, you’d think Paluma would have been a sight for sore eyes after what we’d just been through but nothing was going our way that day and Paluma was no exception. 

The brochure touted it as a quaint mountain town with artsy cafes and cozy accommodations (I expected it to be like Jerome, AZ) but whoever wrote that brochure lied.  The ‘town’ consisted of one small road with a dilapidated motel, the kind where you’d expect to be murdered, a pottery studio and a visitor’s center.  It is situation in the ‘misty mountains’ so it was dark as night and so foggy we couldn’t see a quarter mile, not to mention creepy, and, just for an extra kick in the pants, the only restaurant was closed for the weekend because the owners had gone on vacation.  We’d planned on staying up there for the night and hiking the next day but we sure as hell weren’t staying in that motel and we were hungry with nowhere to eat so we made the slow, curvy drive down the mountain and hit the highway back to Townsville.  Hands down the worst day in Australia so far!  Wish I had more photos for you with this post but there wasn’t much worth taking a picture of.  In lieu of any relevant photos, here’s one of me beneath a giant fake spider outside the museum. 

The next day we still had the rental car so we gave it another shot and headed to the town of Charters Towers in hopes of getting a glimpse of historic rural Australian cattle country.  Charters Towers was a treat compared to the previous day’s adventure.  The drive itself was beautiful but there wasn’t much to see once we got there and it was raining again so we just had lunch there and left.  On our way back, we stopped at a carwash but even that couldn’t wash away the shame from the previous day so we had to hit the grocery store for some sponges before heading back to our hotel and hand-washing the car in the parking lot in the rain.  We got some weird looks but the car did eventually come clean and we were able to return it the next day without any repercussions from our adventure. 

The next day we went to Magnetic Island and spent the weekend on a koala sanctuary where we were both able to hold koalas and other wildlife so the Townsville area wasn’t a total bust...  I’m working on a post about that but we’re headed out on a three day scuba trip aboard a dive boat so it won’t be up until next week.  Sorry I’m getting behind; I promise to try and catch up soon.  We’ve decided to stay in Cairns for a month or two and work while diving and enjoying northern Queensland so hopefully we’ll have a semi-permanent place with good internet by mid-week next week (keep your fingers crossed for that).  Hope you all had a great Memorial Day weekend!