We had quite a day of touring the area today!!! Chris is becoming quite good at driving and navigating and now pretty much knows the lay of the land. I, on the other hand, am still a little bit awestruck and not quite ready to do the driving thing but I am getting there!!! We headed out early this morning after having breakfast and went north of Townsville into the Herbert River Region. It was a fun trip and i am sure I will forget to tell you some things but we stopped at several beaches including one where we would like to look at a house that they have for rent. We had looked at it on the internet and it is still available and we could see the back of it when we walked on the beach…..we will see what it is like inside hopefully this week. The thing is I would probably never get anything done at all because I would just be chilling on the beach all the time!!!

We also went to try to see some waterfalls in the Paluma area and we were able to see some really pretty areas but as we were driving up this incredibly skinny road (reminded us of the roads in the Smoky Mountains) we were met but a rescue vehicle who told us we needed to turn around as there was an accident at the top. So……Chris found a place to do just that very very carefully and as we went back down this incredibly skinny road we were stopped again and told to not park in the car park as that is where they were going to land the rescue copter. Whew. Then ….huge tow trucks passed us as we hugged the side of the road closest to the drop off….yikes!!! I was very glad I had left the driving to Chris—I would not have been up to it even in America!!!

We went all the way into Ingham and found the one place that was open for lunch—McDonalds. They had one of those McCafes which serves coffee so we got mochas but they were kind of disappointing—they used powdered chocolate and it was not the same!!! But it was something to keep us going. The thing that will be hard to get used to here—-shopping places close at 5 or 6 on the weekdays and are open limited hours on the weekends. Seems like maybe the malls might be open more hours on the weekends but they aren’t open late at nights at all either. I guess Australians get their shopping done early or something—it is different though. I kind of feel like we have stepped back in time or something—I think Townsville is a lot more laid back than some other areas like Sydney and Melbourne from the sounds of it.

So tonight we are dining in and relaxing and I am trying to do a load of laundry though it takes an incredibly long time to do it……I will be glad to get a real washer and dryer and iron, etc!!! I am going to post some pictures and I am not sure if they will be at the top or bottom so bear with me!!!