Long, long ago in a land quite far away, I studied abroad in a little island nation called the Turks and Caicos Islands... there, I met some really amazing super cool friends that I'm still in contact with and run into from time to time. One of these lovely people is my friend Heather, who is living out here in Oz going to grad school! She lives about 4 hours south of me, in Townsville. Heather came up to Cairns last week to help out with a research project out on the reef and when she went back to Townsville, I tagged along for a couple days!
It was really nice to get out of town for a bit and see more of this big rock I'm living on. Townsville is a pretty cool area, it's got James Cook University and an army base, so its definitely got a different vibe than Cairns, which is primarily tourists, backpackers and divers.
One day, we went to this SWEET waterfall called Jourma Falls
On the road to Jourma
View of the falls from the lookout... we started down at the bottom and hiked up the rocks beside the waterfalls and made it up pretty high! There were little pools connecting the falls, so we would climb up to another one, swim around in the pool and cool off before headed up to the next fall.
Checking out the falls...
One of the big falls near the top! The tallest one we got to.
There were lots of great places for some cliff jumping action, lots of swimming and even hanging out behind a waterfall! We had such a fun, adventure day. It started raining as we were heading back down, and by the time we got back, the water had risen so much that the little boardwalk we walked in on (in the first picture) was underwater!
The next day I had some time to explore town on my own. There are lots of neat little shops and restaurants and a really nice beach area called the Strand, similar to Cairns' Esplanade, but the Strand actually has sand! Of course, the first thing I really found in Townsville was the aquarium! Shocking, I know.
Leopard shark!!!
So many nemos!!!
There's a great big red rock in the middle of town called Castle Hill... apparently its only a few meters shy of being considered a mountain, so its only a hill. Poor thing. One afternoon Heather and I made the epic journey up the hill! There's a path going up it, and loads of active people running or walking up it. Meanwhile, I was huffing and puffing and complaining about altitude sickness. I don't encounter mountains in the ocean very often! Walking up hills is HARD.
View from the top! That's Townsville and Magnetic Island chillin on the horizon.
We also had an adventure to Alligator Falls as well, but unfortunately my camera died and I didn't get any photos :( BUT one of the coolest parts about Alligator Falls... Wallabys!!!! Everywhere! With baby wallabys!!! It was magical.
Had an absolute blast in Townsville, but now its back to work (if you can call it that...haha).
Sending lots of hugs stateside!
Love and fishes!
