"Sometimes you just need to get away, to see, to hear and to feel new experiences to spark your inspiration again"

Aioli everyone,
Last week, we went on a little getaway, a 4hr road trip each way to the next closest city next to us for a Delta Goodrem concert that was booked a year in advance but we wanted to do a blog to recap all of the adventures and experiences we had along the way,
I don't know if we have officially mentioned this on the blog before but your blogger is based in Cairns, Australia, and for our trip we drove to Townsville, which is the next biggest regional center, which by road is about 4hrs one way, so last Monday we packed up the car and headed south,
We left home base at between 9 to 10 am and arrived in Townsville around 1 to 2pm, the only pit stop we made was in Cardwell for lunch, since being devasted by a cyclone Cardwell was rebuilt and restored and we wanted to check out all the changes that were made, that plus we hadn't drove past the town of Tully in years, going past there to Townsville was going to be a completely new experience since we had gone that full way in over 10 to 20 years,
Being locals to the region we could defiantly tell the difference in the scenery driving down, before Cardwell it was lush and green and you could feel the moisture in the air, but after Cardwell we could feel the air thin out and it was a lot more dry and the humidity wasn't as great, but Cardwell was defiantly a great place to stop over, not only does it have all your rest facilities, but the jetty has been made into a real focal point and there was lots of little cafes and eateries to chose from, the information center is also a great place to visit, it has a lovely lil walk through display there, defiantly great for visitors to the region,
"Excluding all the roadworks for the most part it is all smooth sealed road all the way down, but you can certainly have some fun with some of the creek names on the drive down"
We can't remember all the creek names but some of them were certainly a good laugh along the way, the one we remember the most is Christmas creek, which is decorated appropriately with a full Christmas tree, reef and tinsel, its defiantly one you can't miss along the way, it is certainly a good laugh when your in the middle of no where and your find a bridge looking very festive like that, it was fun to see the locals had a fun festive spirit,
"On approach to Townsville, one of the first things we noticed was the suburb signs, compared to a lot of the scenery which was brown, the blue signs stood out perfectly"
The city certainly lives up to its nickname of Brownsville that it gets up here by locals in the region, compared to the rest of the region it defiantly receives the lowest rainfall and compared to its tropical counterpart Cairns, its dry and brown, the city itself is also very rocky, with one of its main tourist attractions being Castle Hill which is a big rock formation in the middle of the city which you can drive up and get beautiful panoramic views of the sprawling city,
"Besides Castle Hill, the biggest attraction that Townsville is known for is The Strand, which is the esplanade of the city, it is here you can find the Siren, the jetty and lots of cafes and eateries"
The Siren is defiantly a unique attraction out to sea when visiting Townsville, it is an art installation just off from the jetty, that at night changes colours according to the temperature of the water, but it is still beautiful to see during the day too, to get a better look at her in more detail one has to walk along the full length of the jetty, but the jetty also affords visitors a great view of the bay too,
"Our second day in the city was concert day, we had soundcheck tickets so we had to arrive to the venue early, but it was a great concert overall, lots of fun"
The schedule for the concert was running late so for soundcheck, our group did get put together with the VIP section and we got to indulge in a QnA with Delta and her band before early access to the merchandise stand and a quick hot dinner before entering the venue again for the concert, the support act for the concert was Sheppard from Brisbane and they defiantly got the show off to a great start,
The only downside for the night was the bungle, we had with the taxi service, we don't usually like to name and shame businesses here but this one did get us upset, so we thought it would be more convenient and safer to book a taxi back to our accommodation through a taxi company app but little to our knowledge that even though we didn't actually get to see the taxi that we had booked on the app and the driver didn't contact us, we got charged straight away from the app, we are sorry sorry 13cabs but you have lost us as customers for that, once we had realized what had happened, we gave up on trying to book a taxi through the app and just flagged one down at the venue, even though that driver couldn't help us with the app we did lodge a complaint and a refund was issued, but we are sorry you have lost us customers,
"The day after the concert, we took it easy as we got in late, we made the cross town drive to Townsville Stocklands shopping center and chilled out for the day after driving up Castle Hill"
The drive up Castle Hill had lots of twists and turns but the view from the top is defiantly worth it, there is a couple of little walking tracks you can take whilst up there to get different views of the city but they can be pretty steep and at times rocky, so just a word of caution if you try to walk to them, but from the hill we made the drive to Townsville Stocklands and went all out for lunch, this was probably my fave eatery of the trip, I indulged in some chicken pho, stir-fried kimchi with tofu and a ice coffee frappe to drink, all absolutely delicious, after lunch it was onto some retail therapy and just walking around the stores that were there,
The next day was family day, we caught up with a lot of extended family, in the morning I made the solo trip to purchase a ice mocha from Annee Caphe Sua Da, which is a store/brand from Cairns that is branching out in the region with a couple of stores now, it is a Vietnamese Coffee store, we were thankful that day our aunt picked us up at our accommodation and drove us to each house, I can't imagine if we had to try and find each house on our own, it would have been a nightmare, but it was great to see everyone again and hopefully we will get to see them again soon,
"Friday was home day, but we had a couple more family to visit before we could hit the road again, so after checking out, it was onward to see the last few family and then homeward bound it was"
We had no time schedule for this day, it was just try to leave Townsville before dark if we could, we spent quite a bit of time at each of the last remaining family that we visited before we hit the road at 4pm to make the journey back home, once again on the road we stopped in at Cardwell for a rest and then from there it was home sweet home, it was dark when we got home but it was a fun little getaway, very enjoyable, fun and refreshing,
"If you would like to check out some images and videos of our travels then please follow us on our Facebook and Instagram pages, we shall be posting on there, just search walkwithwilz"
That is Wilz for now, take care, travel safely and let's keep walking on this journey called life, peace out
Comments