townsville.

As I mentioned Townsville has sun, sea, bars, restaurants and friends which made it a perfect stop off when we arrived on the coast. One of my friends, Rachel, from England moved to Townsville when she first came to Australia and always talks about how great it is, luckily for us she wasn’t wrong! Rachel had amazingly offered us a place to stay at her apartment whilst we were there which was serious luxury, the apartment was beautiful and in a really good spot and our beds were the comfiest sofas in the world! We arrived early afternoon and met Rachel at her apartment, I was so happy to see her, reunited with an old friend! After dropping her off at work for the evening we took advantage of the space to empty our suitcases and have a bit of a sort out, before heading out for dinner at Cactus Jacks, an amazing mexican place we spotted on our drive through town. The food is absolutely beautiful there, such big portions as well I could barely manage even half my enchiladas. I had an amazing cocktail called ‘Beautiful’, it really was beautiful, if you ever visit make sure you try one. After stuffing our faces I was happy to get home and have a lovely nights sleep.

 The next day was one of my favourite days of the last few months, we spent the whole thing on the sofa, watching netflix, specifically Mad Men, which is a great show by the way, and just generally not doing much at all, it was awesome! I couldn’t believe it when it got to 3pm. Rachel took us for a night out in town when we’d finally dragged ourselves out of our ‘netflix and chill’ stupor, we went to Longboards where Rach works and then to the Seaview Hotel. A lot of alcohol was involved I’ll be honest, with lots of catching up and having a good time, generally an amazing night!

 Someone very cruelly set a 6am alarm for the next morning and once that had gone off I couldn’t get back to sleep so I spent some more time catching up on this site before some more Mad Men binging! In the evening we went up to ‘the hill’ or Castle Hill as it’s officially called, it stands 286m tall and has incredible views of the town, surrounding mountains and magnetic island. Apparently it’s a great place for fitness fans as there were hundreds of people walking and jogging all the way up to the top, needless to say we weren’t taking part! The view of the sunset was beautiful, such a great spot to sit and watch.

  
  
   We finally managed to drag ourselves from the comfort of the apartment to go and explore Townsville on the Tuesday, there are loads of shops, cafes and restaurants all over the place, every road you turn down there seems to be another one, it’s a deceitfully big place! The strand is my favourite place, over looking the sea and Magnetic Island, palm trees lining the whole street, I love it! We also went up to Mt Stuart, a few kilometres out of town, with even better views of the city that Castle Hill. It’s a long drive though so no crazy gym lovers jogging up this one! The whole time we were seeing the sights I kept thinking what a lovely place Townsville really is, although maybe it’s the weather and people that have had such a great effect on me!

After spending the longest we’ve spent in one place for a while we decided it was probably time to head up north and see some more of the coast, so the next morning we went for a beautiful goodbye breakfast at a place called The Balcony, I had eggs benedict with salmon and my god it was SO yummy! Absolutely go in if you feel like an indulgent brekky whilst in Townsville, I couldn’t recommend it enough!

beautiful view from The Balcony.

mmmm eggs benedict.