We spent the day in Townsville and were really surprised at what a nice town it was. I know there is rivalry between Cairns and Townsville and Cairns people believe it is so much prettier but my unbiased vote is for Townsville. We visited the Townsville museum which was actually really nice and gave us something to do. Unlike the rest of the tourists we did not go to Magnetic Island, which we do regret, but we decided to save some cash and since we were definitely going to go to Frazer Island we figured we didn’t need to go to every Island.

Townsville Jungle Gym

Then we drove down to Bowen, where we had trouble finding a campsite since they were either full or no one answered at reception. At least there were a lot there so we found one that was open but it was the oddest campsite we had been to. It was full of travellers who were fruit picking and huge groups of them were sleeping in tents and under tarps, so it wasn’t the cleanest campsite we stayed at nor was it too cheap.

We went grocery shopping which was quite handy in the van because instead of having to unload groceries from a car to the house we just moved them from the cart into our “house.” I loved having a fridge and kitchen in the vehicle, because it was so convenient. If we were hungry we’d just pull over and make lunch. That’s probably the only thing that was handy on the van though.