June 19-22 (Day 140-143) - Townsville part 1

Friday June 19

Caravan Brakes

Our front left van wheel with its shiny
new magnet just installed (just in front of
where the man is working)!

First job off the rank was to get the caravan brakes fixed up, so I rose early Friday morning to take the van up to Bartel Trailers. I stayed with the technician while he did the work and learned a lot from what he had to say. This also gave me a chance to see how he did what he did just on the off-chance I have to get in there and fix something in the Outback sometime!



Originally the plan had been to change the complete drum assemblies, meaning we would have new magnets, brake shoes, drums, magnets, wheel bearings etc etc. However it turned out most of the mechanicals in there were in pretty good condition and it was, as I had suspected back at Home Hill, only the magnets which were faulty. The old ones were somewhat worn down but the technician said they had worn well past the 'replace' wear indicators so needed doing anyway.

So overall all he had to do was replace the other three magnets (I'd done one myself in Home Hill) and one wheel bearing and everything else was good to go. I could certainly feel them braking more evenly on the way home, and as the new magnets wear into the shape of the inside of the drum (as this surface was not machined, being a little ridged but not too bad), they will grab even better.


After this was done I went to a nearby shopping complex and did some work in a cafe for a couple of hours, then came back to the house. While I'd been out Mim and the others had been having a good old chinwag!

When I got back I found the replacement inverter had arrived! I installed it later in the evening and it all worked fine. So we'll be fine to free camp again once we're on our way.

Saturday June 20

Today we went for a drive around Townsville to 'take in the sights', as it were.

First we went to The Strand, which is a palm-lined promenade along the beach opposite Magnetic Island. We were intending to go for a swim but the weather wasn't really swimming weather, so instead the kids played in the sand or we walked along the promenade while Mim and I chatted.

After we'd finished at the beach, we decided to drive up to the top of Castle Hill, which is a prominent pink granite mountain which dominates the skyline just behind downtown Townsville (hmm that's a mouthful!). As you can see from the map, it's quite close to the water, and looks directly across to magnetic island on the one side, while from the other you can see across the suburbs of Townsville.

Castle Hill as seen from the north eastern face (ocean side)

On our drive to the top we encountered an amazing number of people walking up and down this road! Apparently it's only just been re-opened while some gyms and fitness clubs haven't been, so it seems Castle Hill is the local haunt for fitness gurus!

Looking north east across to Magnetic Island

The views were pretty incredible! This panorama is on the south side of
Castle Hill, looking from east to west (L-R)

Looking east

You can really see the pink colour of the granite in this photo!

We finished our little jaunt and returned home for the evening.

I started reading Surviving Year Zero while I was here, as mentioned back in Home Hill and once I started it was hard to put it down!

Sunday June 21

Lunch with Nathan, Anna and their kids

Today we'd been invited to have the memorial meeting with Nathan and Anna, who are our hosts' son and his wife.

We livestreamed into Townsville's meeting which was lovely.

Just after the Zoom meeting

We then enjoyed lunch with them. They have an old Mastiff which the kids quite liked, especially Jude!

After lunch we went for a walk to Pioneer Park, which runs along the Ross River.  We were amazed to see dozens and dozens of turtles swimming just at the edge of the river!

Loads of turtles just below the surface!

All those little protrusions in the water along the bank
are turtle noses!

A delightful view up Ross River. Almost Lake District-like!

Down at the Weir

The kids checking out a spider spinning its web

Crossing the bridge to the eastern side of Ross River

Nathan, Anna, Miranda and Jarrod

Monday June 22

It was another early-ish morning as I got up to take the car to Pedders to get some new front shock absorbers installed. The old shocks were very worn! The technician pushed the plunger down - it was very stiff and didn't rebound at all! I didn't realise they were that badly worn out. So it shouldn't have been surprising that it felt so much different on the road after this! The ride was so much smoother and it seemed to just glide over imperfections in the road. When things slowly wear out like this, the change is so slow you don't notice it happening, but once it's fixed you really notice the difference!

For the three hours I was there, I was busily trying to get the blog up to date, which I nearly finished!

While I was out, the boys were helping Uncle Colin in the garden. During their digging, Jude found a green tree frog and a very healthy sized witchety grub!

Mim made pizzas for lunch, and after lunch she and Bek went op shopping, while Uncle Colin got some bikes out of his shed, pumped up the tyres, oiled the chains and the boys took them across the road to the local park. For the rest of the afternoon I chatted with Uncle Colin and Aunty Shirley as he showed me some photos of his time in Perth, and then got on with finishing off the blog, which has now been done - yay!!

-- Greg