Yellow Spotted Monitor

Townsville has a (not-quite-a) mountain slap bang in the middle of town, so today we got up early and started climbing. At least, we thought we were early.

By 7am we were on the goat track leading up the summit, with the intention of getting up and down before the full heat of the mid day sun hit us. But as we climbed, we realised we were the only ones going up. Everyone we passed was going down having already been at the top for the sun rise.

It wasn't long before we wished we'd done the same. By 8am, the temperature was approaching 30 degrees and the humidity must have been in the 80% range making breathing that much harder!

An hour and a half later, we reached the top - wet through with sweat! The view down over the town and the coast was great, and we had a well deserved rest and drink of cold water.

We struggled in the heat, but I was astounded when up the same track after us came a family with a baby in a toddler and Labrador! The poor dog didn't know what to do with itself when presented with a puddle of ice cold water. Drink it or roll in it. In the end it decided to do both. At the same time.

Who climbs a mountain with a dog in that heat?!

The downward trip was much easier and took just over 30 mins, so we headed over to the towns 'rock pools' - a salt water safe swimming area. We wallowed here for a while, and it's where we saw this guy trying to out muscle someone for their lunch! He was eventually chased off with a lot of noise and a spatular, but this thing had no fear - It was about 1 meter long!

For lunch we found a cafe overlooking the pools which did a sea food platter. $100 later (!), we could have done with a second table for all the food! Oysters, prawns, scallops, mackerel, calamari, and bugs....

You know the face hugger things out of Aliens? Bugs look like them. But they taste amazing!

Being Friday night, we headed out to into town for a night out and went to the Brewery again. I learned early on in this trip, that for a night out, girls get dressed up, and guys... well they might put on some deodorant for the occasion. Shorts, t-shirt and flip-flops are acceptable for all occasions!

Unfortunately, it seems Townsville is a little less 'country' than the rest of the places on our trip so far, and I was the only pillock in a trendy bar in a trendy part of town on a Friday night, in shorts and flip flops.

Arse.

They did however sell 'pints' rather than the standard 'schooners' so I at least got back some man-points by showing everyone else the correct way to drink beer!