Blake and Deb Far Away

The Billabong Wildlife Sanctuary lies just south of Townsville and is home to an assortment of rescued and captive-born native Australian wildlife including crocodiles, kangaroos, koalas, wombats, cassowaries, and many others. There are also a number of wild birds attracted to the billabong (pond) around which the sanctuary is situated. We spent the whole day there and had a great time. There were many interesting interactive presentations and wildlife feeding times throughout the day. Because the animals here are generally not candidates for reintroduction to the wild, they are allowed to become quite tame and used to human interaction. So if you want to hold a koala or hand feed a kangaroo you can do that. The crocodiles, however, might best be left alone. Koala.  Interesting fact: A mother koala will smear her feces over the face and body of her joey (baby) - not as some sort of sadistic punishment or Joan Crawford impersonation, but so that the offspring will lick itse...

We enjoyed the beautiful beaches on the Big Island of Hawaii when we lived there, but they were small. If you wanted a long walk on the beach you had to do laps – lots of laps. Townsville, on the other hand, and Australia in general, has nice long beaches where you can walk for hours without covering the same ground. There are a string of five beaches to the north of Townsville, including Saunders Beach, which is only 12 minutes away from where we are staying. It’s a nice sandy expanse with a gentle slope and a couple of interesting stream channels carved in the sand. It fronts a residential community and a small camping park. Saunders Beach has a nice noncommercial feel with mostly people walking, fishing, building sand castles with their kids, or playing with their dogs. Saunders Beach Egret Excavation from a crab Stream channel Home by the sea Black Cockatoo Patterns in the sand Mangrove area near the beach ...

Townsville is blessed with three botanical gardens – impressive for a city its size. We visited one called the Palmetum, which, it will surprise no one, features palm trees, although there are certainly plenty of other flora and fauna represented. The free garden is close to 17 hectares (42 acres) and is divided into a number of different climatic habitats from the dry tropics to the wet tropical lowlands. We had an expensive but very good lunch at the restaurant in the historic building on site. Interestingly, the flowers on the table at the restaurant in the middle of a botanic garden were plastic. Path thru the Palmetum Palm fruits. Looks like a pond but they call it a lagoon. Magpie Goose Alien-looking agave. More agave. Australian White Ibis Cactus (photo by Deborah) Kangaroo family. Black Dragonfly The "lagoon" (photo by Deborah) More variations on agave (photo by Deborah) ...

Townsville is on the northeast coast of Australia near the Great Barrier Reef. The reef is a bit closer to shore north of here, which is why Cairns is more of a gateway to the reef than Townsville. Still, there is some reef tourism here and they have an aquarium called Reef HQ which has done a really good job of displaying what a reef ecosystem is like. It isn’t huge or fancy, but we really enjoyed the displays and the educational talks/demonstrations. We did learn some new things. We knew the bit about sea stars' rather disgusting practice of pushing their stomachs outside of their bodies to dissolve their prey, but it also turns out they have an eye on the end of each leg. How did we not know this? Oh, and their butts are on top (away from the mouth, which is on the bottom, of course). Sea snails like the red mouthed stromb have eyes too. Cone snails, we learned, are all venomous; some to such a degree that they can kill a human. So now we can add these diminutive mollusks to...

We are starting our world trip with a 3-month house sit near Townsville, a city on the northeast coast of Australia. We weren’t really planning on such an extended stay, but when Beth and Ian, the homeowners, approached us based on our profile on aussiehousesitters.com.au, we decided a long break with free rent and nice weather was too good to pass up. Normally when we house sit we are primarily meant to look after the homeowner's dogs and/or cats. But in this case our only duties are to maintain the swimming pool, water the gardens, mow the lawn, and look after a couple of chickens. We even lucked out in not having to rent a car as the couple’s daughter is letting us use hers for a nominal fee. Her car is technically for sale, so if it does sell we’d have to rent from then on, but for now we have economical wheels. Townsville is a city of 180,000 but we are in a semi-rural location about 20 km (12 miles) from the town center. Out here the lots are large and fenced in, with mo...