Townsville August 2013, Week 1

August 14^th, We travelled to Townsville today, only stopping for a coffee break at Ayr and the numerous road works along the Bruce Highway. Townsville is dear to our hearts because this is where Val and I met 50 years ago. Since starting out travels, we have been to Townsville before, possibly in 2008, but this time we didn’t recognize anything driving into Town and our navigator was also totally lost, due to someone not updating her maps for some years now. After getting on to a Motorway that took us miles out of our way before we could get off, we made our way back to our destination, where we booked into the Coral Coast Tourist Park, for a 2 week stay. It’s a Top Tourist Park, so is very nice and our site is under a shady tree, which I was happy about, as the Temperatures up here hover around 28deg every day. We got fully set up, met our next door neighbours and all went to the Wednesday night “meet and greet” sausage sizzle at the Parks camp kitchen. Val put together a salad for us to take and when we got there we found that they already had salad, but it all was eaten by the group at our table anyway, so not a problem. Tonight we had a BBQ meat patty with salad and then they brought out dessert, so add a few wines with all that and we had a great time. Back at our Van we were soon aware of the fact that this Park is next door to the Townsville RAAF Base and they were obviously doing night flying practice in their huge Helicopters and that went on continuously till 11pm.

August 15^th, We did the nostalgic drive around town and found the Criterion Hotel, where Val and her parents had stayed, while they were looking for a house in Townsville. We went along the full length of The Strand, saw the Tobrook Baths where we first met, and around to Jupiter’s Casino. We had another attempt to locate where I had lived but couldn’t positively identify the exact spot, too long ago, too many changes to this Town. The streets in the CBD are now covered with parking meters and heaps of tall buildings. There are huge Shopping Centres all around the suburbs, just like Brisbane or Sydney.

August 16^th, Having logged onto the Centrelink Web site and recorded our new address, I still have to lodge the signed form at a Centrelink Office. So off I went to the address of the nearest Office, as told by their web site. Using my doubtful navigator, I did get to Centrelink after a 10 minute drive and got on the queue. The place was full of people; I estimate possibly 100, sitting around waiting to be attended to! When it came to my turn to be evaluated by the “meet and greet” person (as I call them) he wanted to take my form and pop it into an envelope and send it to Canberra for processing as they were very busy and the wait would be about an hour. No way, I said “I’ll wait an hour to see someone and get my problems sorted out, the last place we stayed at did that posting off thing and I was paid short in my pension”. He then decided to tell me that I was at the wrong Centrelink Office and needed to go to the Willow Shopping Centre office, a further 10 minutes away, who look after the Pensioners! To cut a long story short, it’s all fixed up now. I did the same drive after lunch, as Val wanted to go to Rivers to look at their shoes and we went across to the Willow Shopping Centre and did the rounds of the Shops. For Val it’s called Retail Therapy. They had animated "Dinasour Displays" right through the Shopping Centre which were entertaining the kids. We found a Dan Murphy Outlet on the way home, so now we know where to go to get the cheapest wine.

August 18^th, This morning we went into Town, to the Flinders Street Markets. They close off 2 blocks of Flinders Street and have stalls along both sides. As usual there were a lot of stalls with the same products, but we bought some fruit and checked all the stalls selling jams, pickles and chutneys. The “home made” jams etc. were very expensive, 275g jars @ $7.80 a jar and smaller @ $4.50 a jar. After we had been right around the Markets we went to The Cowboy’s Leagues Club for a light lunch and a flutter. A nice Club and the food was good. We left the Club and drove along The Strand, then headed out past Rowes Bay to the end of Cape Pallarenda. We watched some people taking their boats out of the water, at low tide, before going back to Pallarenda, to find where Val’s parents were living, in Brisk Street, when we first met. After a chat with the current owners and a photo, we headed home having enjoyed our Sunday outing.

August 20^th, I went to “Skin Repair”, a Skin Cancer Clinic, at 10am this morning and had a full scan, as suggested by Dr. Ghandi in Mackay. I had one suspicious spot frozen on my right ear and a deep tissue biopsy taken from my right shin. I have an appointment for Thursday morning to attend their Operating Theatre to have another spot cut out of my back and get the results of the biopsy. Any further treatment will be discussed and the options appear to be; if the shin problem is only on the skin then it will be scraped off but if it’s deeper, then an operation to cut out the cancerous area will be necessary and a skin graft to cover that area, as their isn’t any loose skin in that area. We may need to have a longer stay in Townsville.