First of all happy birthday to Russ, 28 today!

Feeling refreshed after a few days staying at Airlie Beach near the Whitsundays, it was nice to hit the road again and make some more progress north.

After 100km we saw a sign off the main highway towards a lookout, and decided to take this short detour. The signs warned that it was a very steep road, and they weren't kidding. It was fine though really, not a problem with our new van with only 22k on the clock. There was a car following us up the steep road, so we let them overtake us at a turning as we weren't going particularly quickly. However, they soon stopped up in front of us and we could see lots of steam coming from their bonnet. This is normally an indication of bad news. We checked if they needed help, and they did, just not the sort we could provide. They needed a completely new radiator - there's had blown out with coolant everywhere. After having a bit of a chat with them, a nice couple, it turned out that they were supposed to be heading to Cairns. They didn't have any breakdown cover - not a good idea with their old Toyota. We gave them some of our water and said we'd meet them at the bottom of the hill and give them a lift to the nearest petrol garage. Hopefully from there they could hopefully arrange to get a mechanic out to fix their car. Thankfully, the nearest petrol station was only a couple of minutes back up the road, so we dropped them off and wished them luck. We felt a bit sorry for them; I know we'd want someone to help out if it had happened to us.

Helping out the stranded couple meant we didn't make it right to the top of the lookout in the end, but Stu still managed to get some shots on the way down. We continued on the main highway towards Townsville.

About 28km south of Townsville, we turned off the highway towards Bowling Green Bay National Park. Our guide book said it had a creek where you could take a swim and have a short walk to some falls. On the drive to the car park we saw a couple of wallabies, and there were also some brush turkeys wandering about. At Alligator Creek, there were already some people taking a dip. We had a walk round the area first, heading up the steps to see the falls take in the views of the creek. There were hundreds of tiny little toads jumping out of the way as we walked. We thought they were some kind of little bugs at first as they were so small. We also spotted a much larger toad about the size of a clenched fist.

After having a good walk around, we took a dip in the creek. The water was quite warm, and very refreshing in the hot sun. The water was really clear, and we could see plenty of little fish around us. After having a pleasant swim, we decided it was time to head on up to Townsville to find our campsite.

We can see Magnetic Island from our campsite! We are going to try and book a tour tomorrow.