Townsville, Australia, Australia

Today was another slow day. I woke up at the hostel at about 6:30am to make sure that I could get into the bathroom before the other five roommates woke up and took over. I was out of the hostel by 7:30am and in the lobby waiting for the local bus to come and bring me to the ferry terminal. Lisa and I hopped on the 10am ferry and headed back over to Townsville.

This time we had accommodation booked so we didn’t have to stay in the horrible Civic Guest House again. We got a cab over to the Foreign Exchange Backpackers, which was a little further out of town that I would have liked, but it is still very nice. I am in a 8-person mixed dorm, but luckily it is only myself and two other guys. One 33 year old Italian and a 65 year old American, both are travelling on their own, and are very nice guys.

Unfortunately the air conditioning in the rooms doesn’t go on until 6pm, so it is absolutely roasting in the dorm. It is much more comfortable to sit outside on the massive porch where you can occasionally get a breeze. While sitting out there enjoying the relatively cool breeze coming by I met two people travelling together. Heather and Pierre (an American and a Swede) had met in New Zealand and are travelling up the east coast. They have just come off a three day diving cruise through the Great Barrier Reef, so we had a lot to talk about there.

I’ve been told there isn’t much to do in Townsville as a tourist because it is mainly a college town, so there are a lot of bars and restaurants, but not much more. It turned out to be true so we just hung out at the hostel for the day and went out for dinner. Heather is from Denver so she had the same hankering for some Mexican food that I always have. Pierre, Heather, Lisa and I went out to Cactus Jack’s for some dinner and margaritas, and headed back to the hostel by about 9:30pm. It is so exhausting being out in the heat, it drains the energy right out of you. I went back to my dorm to speak to my roommates for a little while, and now I’m ready to crash. I think I have another relaxing day in Townsville tomorrow, as there’s not too much going on here…