Seashalia: Mackay, Bowen and Townsville

The country-side near Mackay was so beautiful with the ranges on our left and the sugar cane fields were ripe for harvest and everything was as green as could possibly be, with all the dams full. The roads are being torn up in many places to make way for the advances of the mining industry. We found a quiet place in a secluded valley and on the beach at Seaforth to "free park" ($21, great hot showers for 20c, no power). What a friendly group there, mostly from the Central Coast. The terrain consisted of steep, wild, rocky mountains in the valley. I pictured the lucky children who had the opportunity to grow up in such a beautiful place. We found ourselves caught up in the peak hour traffic coming into Mackay and glad to get out into the valley and the beach.

O beautiful Bowen. We spent quite a few days here enjoying the sparkling ocean of tropical waters which surround this fortunate town. It is really like a big country town with wide streets, but because it is surrounded on three sides by ocean, it has a beauty all of its own. The beaches were beautiful, with the most fantastic rocks thrown from some huge volcano once upon a time. How I would have loved to see it all happening. We were glad to find a smaller version of Woolworths there for supplies. The buildings, many of them are very ancient, were interesting and in fact the movie "Australia" was shot in beautiful Bowen. Many of the townsfolk had the opportunity to be extras in the cast. The buildings which were shown to be in Darwin were actually in Bowen. It was great to learn all this as both the "Australia" movie and Bowen are favourites. We went to church there and the people begged us to stay forever. They enjoyed having Graeme to play the piano for them for church, they used recordings for the Sabbath School hymns. The caravan park there was wonderful, like a boutique van park, with a magnificent pool to swim in, so that was a great help to us. We were also on the ocean there.

Townsville was to be our next stop. We came this way last year, but wanted a bit more time to look around. Some of our best photos were taken in the National Park north of Townsville. As you approach Townsville from the south, you travel past huge, tall, rocky mountains, which appeared black as we drove toward and past them. They were covered with wild forest and would look different in a changing light. We drove past them for about 40 ks until we reached Townsville. Strange, we can't actually remember them from last year. Our van park here has a pool and we are once again on the ocean, though it is up the hill from our van, so we have to walk to the top of the park to see the ocean. It is tidal and you can walk out forever and still be in shallow water. Sitting right out there in front of us is Magnetic Island, which conjures up every romantic and beautiful picture you have ever seen of the tropical waters and beaches with tropical fish to photograph and to swim with. A regular boat runs there frequently during the day and we look forward to a bright sunny day when we can go out and explore the island and its enchantment.