From Airlie Beach we headed to Townsville which is a surprisingly large city spread over a vast distance. Traffic wasn’t bad but we noticed we were spending a lot of time stopped at traffic lights. We stayed at a caravan park for a couple of nights where we met a nice bunch of Dutch fellows travelling around Australia in a Pajero and a motorbike. They told us the story of how the guy riding the a bike hit a kangaroo and managed to not crash and then went back to put the fatally injured roo out of it’s misery. We walked up Castle Hill which is a hill in the middle of the city. It’s a fun climb, good exercise, good views and there’s a cooling station that sprays misty water to cool off after the steep climb which was handy because it was hot and most of the walk is in the sun. We also walked to the beach and around the city. The city seemed pretty quiet and there were plenty of vacant premises. Not much time to do anything else. We’d like to check out Magnetic Island but we’re on a schedule to reach the tip of Cape York.