Townsville

Townsville is a small city by the coast spread out across flat land, inland are mountains and hills which you can only really see from castle rock, a cliff top with amazing 360 degree views. So many backpackers will say this is the only thing Townsville has to offer and it is if you stay here for 2 minutes. but to me  It offered so so much more. Cairns is just 4 and a half hours away, north. So the Great Barrier Reef can also be seen here, they also do skydiving and similar activities cairns would offer, it's just a lot quieter, standard night life, nothing too spectacular except the American style lasoon bars in an array of colours along the street. its also full of  more strip clubs than any other place I went to, or perhaps it just seemed to be advertised more here, although it wouldn't surprise me as the town was full of miners or military guys. magnetic island is a short 30 min ferry crossing away that runs till late at night. Day trips can also be arranged to the Yongala wreck in Ayr which is listed amongst the top 10 Dive sites in the world.  Townsville is also home to some cool but not at all freezing waterfalls and quiet campsites as apose to cairns'  which are usually busier and full of crocodiles these are clear of crocs -perfect! especially during summer months when its jelly fish season and swimming in the sea is something your avoiding. Everyone has there favourite place on the east coast, usually Sydney or another metropolitan city but i loved Townsville, its small,  has a military base, a fitness freak theme with its running path along side the beach that has different parts of a gym at each stop,  a huge rock pool, man made for people to swim in if they prefer something shallow and calm and a view of magnetic island in the distance.  Palm trees and bats... I could go on and on. It's my favourite place on the east coast.

I checked into reef backpackers, the hostel I'd stayed on my first night in Townsville. The days ahead consisted of editing my CV. I probably had numerous different versions of it each Lying about past Experience from bar work to waitressing. At the end of the day there was no chance anybody was going to call any UK number for a reference. I could have been a genius who went to Oxford and been a neuro scientist whilst juggling 3 part time jobs for all they knew. And if it was blatantly obvious I had no experience on the trial, the trial itself was experience and the worst thing that was going to happen was that I wasn't going to get the job. So it was trips to the local library and printing off resumes, returning to the hostel and making them look  presentable. It seemed to get me a lot of attention in the hostel, the stack of resumes I was preparing in the TV area. I met a lot of people through their general curiosity. We went to get $5 Chinese, amazing! I met Christina and holly, absolutely amazing girls, it was just so easy with them. Holly had a boyfriend  in the army too and it was nice to finally meet someone who was in the same situation as I was. We discussed typical squaddie attitude towards us mear civvies, things like that. It was so good just to hear someone was going through what I was. Your used to the distance but it doesn't mean you miss them any less. 

I remember one discussion that's really stayed with me. The guy who owns the hostel, He used to get a lot of revenue some years ago when there were more people traveling to Australia but then the recession took a hit. I started to ask a lot of questions and didn't understand how the recession could really effect the numbers of travellers and as he was explaining I got the impression he was very negative and it bothered me because you can't get anywhere, you can't do anything without that positive attitude. its like a spark that ignites a flame. Positive attitude first and the rest follows. It will just happen. It turned into a bit of a debate. He said it didn't always work like that but he's not knocking my attitude he's just a realist. My belief is that no matter what situation your in, you could be on the streets homeless and you could still be highly successful if you can have a positive attitude. Kristina had been to India when she was younger and had witnessed first hand family's living in rubbish tips so she couldn't agree with me at all. She said its so much harder than I think and it doesn't matter what people try to do, because of their situation they just can't break free of poverty. They try their best, they do numerous things but its hard and takes more than a positive attitude. I kind of felt like I was up on a shrine of positivity and someone just brought me down to earth again. kristina gave me the facts. I didn't like the facts, I didn't like seeing animal abuse or poverty stricken country's on the TV, in fact I made a conscious effort to avoid all of that negative stuff but hearing Kristina helped me to put things in perspective. I will still believe every person on that rubbish heap in india had it in them to be successful but to conclude

  “There are dreamers and there are realists in this world, you think the dreamers would find the dreamers and the realists would find the realists, but more often than not the opposite is true. See the dreamers need the realists to keep the dreamers from soaring too close to the sun. And the realists? Well without the dreamers, they might not ever get off the ground"

I found this quote scanning through Facebook newsfeed during this discussion actually. Perfect timing. We said that it was nice that we could have that discussion without it getting heated. It's nice that we can all accept each others  opinions.

I finally found a job on gumtree one late evening. Cleaning apartments on magnetic island. I thought it couldn't be so different from cleaning on Hamilton island so I gave this guy Chris a call straight away even though it was around 9/10pm at the time, the job advertisement had only been posted minutes earlier. Chris answered and I was to go over for an interview. 

The Interview with Chris was with his wife and went well, they seemed really laid back and I was offered the job. I would be staying with him, his wife, his daughter and their current cleaner fabia in one of the hotel apartments. I would start in a couple of days.

Back in Townsville, Anna and Zoe arrived from the outback. We had an awesome night out. Townsville isn't really the busiest place unless some big  events going on, the street full of bars and strip clubs look like colourful American style lasoons. Anna was so funny, she didn't care that night, she probably doesn't care most nights, but she pulled out some crazy dance moves that night. So everyone else is getting low, twerking or whatever and there's us, cheesy moves galore. Brilliant. 

We arranged a day trip to magnetic island where we would also hire a car, it was an awesome day just not giving a fuck and I was happy that I had a job secured so I didn't mind treating myself to a meal out with them either. Magnetic island is beautiful, although in the ferry terminal you see pictures of turtles you kind of expect to see some when you get to Maggies, you also expect the Great Barrier Reef to be around too since there are so many places to snorkel but apparently tourism kind of destroyed what was left of the reef there. So what you have are some gorgeous mountainous views, sea scapes, palm trees and picturesque sunsets on beaches. Paradise! unless you find yourself on a nudist beach with a guy who's constantly scratching his testacles (thats another story...) Things to do include, seeing wild koalas (although you would have to know where to look) and feeding rock wallabies (arcadia) and loraqueets (YHA hostel at 4pm every day) and that's just the free things to do. if you had money you could do so much more.  You can't really snorkel as the visibility is shocking, everything Is easily accessible (unlike Hamilton) 2 supermarkets on the island and cheap delivery if you want to order from another mainland. Busses run regularly across the island even till late too.. Ok so clearly I love maggies, I won't go on, I'll just say I had such a good time with the girls that day. We returned to the car singing "I'm a barbie girl..." Just because the car looked like a pink plastic toy. I loved driving that car.

I was sad to say goodbye to everyone including Kristina and Hope who left on the same day as Anna and Zoe, although I was sure I would see most backpackers I'd met in my travels in Sydney for new year.