We had been so excited to get to the Queensland coast. Beautiful beaches, blue waters, blue skies and swimming, snorkelling and playing on white sandy beaches. (Well, that’s what we expected anyway). So for days and days of driving we had been progressively getting the kids more and more excited to hit the coast again and they had joined in our anticipation of all of the above!

What we actually discovered once we hit the coast at Townsville was rain, grey skies, wind, very tidal muddy colored water with mangroves. (Looked very much like croc country to me!), which had signs everywhere saying no swimming unless you wanted to die from either crocodiles or stingers, and mud for beaches!!

So we had to change our thought process somewhat to a more of a stay out of the rain, stay out of the water and find play grounds, go for walks and rides or just do the touristy stuff.

We did find some great places. “The Strand” (The esplanade) was fantastic, water parks, swimming pool, play grounds and the usual shops and cafes etc. We spent a day at “Reef HQ”, the aquarium which was great. The kids got to do some interactive  lessons and loved seeing all the underwater life.  Our neighbours had one child who was 7, and she LOVED playing with the kids. They even had 2 pet guinea pigs living in the caravan with them which our kids loved!

After Townsville we headed to Bowen and stayed at Horseshoe bay, which was beautiful. The wind continued to blow and blow, but thankfully we were out of the wind at the caravan park.