Due to an aircraft downgrade, we ended up not sitting together. Amy took one for the team and sat next to the grumpy old woman who instead of getting up to let Amy in, told her to 'just climb over me.'
After an otherwise uneventful flight, we started to see land as we decended into Townsville. When I say land, what I mean is large stretches of nothing, stretching for miles all around us.
Amy running from a bee after the plane
Though Townsville is actually on the East Coast, between Cairns and Brisbane, it really felt like we'd arrived in the outback. Amy made the executive decision to spend a night in Townsville instead of getting on the bus to Bowen (where the farm is,) that night.
Townsville, the capital of North Queensland, reminded us a lot of a small holiday town. There's a small strip of shops, with a couple of pubs and restaurants just up from the beach. We probably saw about half a dozen people the whole time we were there.
It took us a while to adjust from the British style climate of Melbourne to 30+ degrees of Queensland, but the weather, beach and holiday- style beach front cafes, made us feel like we were on holiday.
Once we'd explored Townsville, (probably a bit too well,) we caught a bus to go 3 and a half hours further out the way to the farm town of Bowen. Seeing maybe two cars on the whole journey gave us an indication of how quiet Bowen would be.
We checked into the hostel and got our names on the list for farm work. Backpackers are granted one visa to stay for a year in Australia, and in order to obtain a second year visa, you have to do 3 months farm work - so here we were!
The hostel finds the work, tells you when something is available and takes you to the farm. Unfortunately, the season didn't start until April so had around a week spare.
If Townsville seemed quiet then Bowen is something else. A high street of maybe half a dozen shops, one pub and an IGA was pretty much all Bowen had to offer. The beach, even though quite nice, doesn't have any areas of dry sand and as it's the 'stinging season,' you're not allowed to swim in the sea.
We made the best of stretching out small activities. Me and Alex went for a walk along the beach, (while Amy watched Hollyoaks!) Walking a little up the road we soon felt like we were in the outback.
When Alex's hat flew off into the sea, we decided to walk across the sand to retrieve it from the other side of the beach. We had to abort the mission when we noticed hundreds of tiny crabs whilst walking across the sand!
The next day, we got told we had work that afternoon. And so the fun began....
