Townsville

Heading to Townsville today and will be there for a couple of weeks - it will actually be nice to be a bit settled for a few weeks. It was a bit tricky trying to find the caravan park as Townsville is alot bigger than we had expected - but luckily the GPS got us there safe and sound.

Spent the first couple of days relaxing and checking out some of the sights around Townsville - we loved "The Strand" which was a boardwalk on the water front. The kids especially enjoyed the water park and the climbing spiders web on the beach.

It has been a bit strange to go from cold weather inland (jeans and jumpers) to hot weather on the coast (shorts and shirts) but we are all enjoying it all the same. We also went to the Museum of Tropical Queensland, which had a variety of displays including dinosaur eggs, the story of the HMS Pandora ship, and a science centre. We all had a great time at the musuem and actually learnt a lot especially about the ship, Pandora.

The British Admiralty sent HMS Pandora in pursuit of the Bounty and her mutinous crew. On her return voyage, having captured 14 of the mutineers in Tahiti, the Pandora struck the Great Barrier Reef and sunk, with almost all of the crew dying.

Chris and I got to be part of the "Gun Team" on the Pandora - they had rigged up a cannon as they used to have on the ships. We learnt how to load and fire a cannon, just the way they did in the 1790s.

The kids also had lots of fun in the science centre - and by kids I mean Chris! We all had a ball trying the mindbenders and challenging our senses - all the different activities were set up around the room and the kids could touch and try them and try to work out how they worked.

Checkout other photos from the musuem here http://picasaweb.google.com/travellingoakeys/TownsvilleMusuemOfTNQ?feat=directlink