This is another one of those spontaneous trips that me & Marissa decided to take just for the weekend. The original purpose was to fly up here to get Marissa her 3rd property. In-line with the Rockhampton trip’s style, we wanted to do a business/holiday trip in one weekend. Since we enjoyed ourselves in Rockhampton immensely, we thought Townsville would be no different.
It’s not the first time I’ve been there. I actually really like Townsville. It almost has everything that Brisbane has! It’s also where my block of 4 units made the most money for me. I’ve always regretted selling this property. It’s still going up!!
Anyway.. our Saturday was spent going to Ingham, which is about 1 hour drive away from Townsville. First we checked out some flats with a real estate agent. It didn’t appeal to me and Marissa, given it was in a flood zone. We ended up noticing “Forrest Beach”. It’s about 45 minutes away from Ingham itself, and it looks like a lot development is happening there. So we took a quick trip there. Forrest Beach is definitely a small community alright. The beach was not all that appealing, but it’s still a beach. There’s hardly any shops at the moment. However, it seems like there’s a lot of sub-divided lots everywhere for sale! We were definitely interested! Apparently shops are going up, and there will be more facilities in place.
We drove back to Townsville for the night, and found a little apartment unit for $120 at “The Strand”. It’s a nice little happening strip of beach with lots of shops, people & restaurants. We had a nice little fish & chips for dinner and went to sleep.
The next day.. it’s time for Magnetic Island, famous for ‘mokes’ (a mini-island car). We didn’t end up hiring one, but took a bus-tour instead. We ended up meeting this asian girl (from UK), who travels alone. She’s a doctor from Sydney, but looks young! Apparently she works 70-80 hours a week, and gets every alternate week off. So, she’s here diving the Great Barrier Reef this week. How amazing! I wish I could do that!
Anyway, Marissa was not really that impressed with Magnetic Island as she was with Great Keppel Island off Rockhampton. I tried snorkelling at Arthur Bay beach, and it certainly wasn’t pretty. The highlight is probably the market at Horse Shoe Bay. In line with my gambling habbits at the moment, I even had time to sit down at an internet cafe to place a bet on World Cup!! 😉
Coming back to Townsville, we decided to stay at a relatively ‘posh’ accomodation tonight. We picked the Sugar Shaker building, where Holiday Inn is. The building is the most prominent in the Townsville BCD, and it definitely looks like a sugar shaker alright. The room was fantastic, and we had the view of the mountain nearby! We felt too poor for posh dinner, so I ended up eating Subway, while Marissa had chinese take-away for dinner.
The next morning was spent looking at some real estate in Townsville CBD. It certainly has gone up in price by a fair bit since I was last here! we managed to fit in a trip up the highest point in Townsville. The view was fantastic!
We left Townsville at about 1pm. While not as memorable as Rockhampton, it was definitely a worthwhile getaway. It’s unlikely I’ll come here again, unless we decided to buy those land we saw at Forrest Beach. You never know…
