Our last day in Townsville began with a visit to the Townsville Museum and Historical Society, which is the only museum whose displays are solely dedicated to the history of Townsville. It was established in 1984, opening its doors in 1985 in the historic Magistrates Court building in Sturt Street and in 2003, moved to its present location outside the CBD in the suburb of Currajong. The Museum comprises two display halls and all exhibits are well presented. Hall One tells the stories of some of Townsville’s early business pioneers, medical professionals and craftsmen together with fascinating artifact displays. Hall Two features the Society's larger exhibits and traces Townsville’s history from the time of European settlement. We enjoyed reading about the characters who contributed to Townsville's history. Click here to see more about the 

After some lunch at Castletown, one of Townsville's three large shopping centres, we made a second attempt to get to the Castle Hill lookout after begin prevented from doing so on Wednesday due to roadworks. However yet again we were denied, not able to negotiate our way around the roadworks and so dejected, we returned back to the van after stopping to replenish the fridge and pantry with some essentials.

But we were not leaving Townsville without a visit to Castle Hill and so after a little research on how to get there and avoid the roadworks, we headed off on our third attempt! At last we were successful, encountering many pedestrians running or walking up and down the Castle Hill access road. It must be a Queensland thing to exercise by walking up and down hills because we encountered the same thing at Charters Towers when we drove up to Towers Hill there. At the summit we walked to a couple of the outlooks which gave great 360° views, including across Cleveland Bay to Magnetic Island, the CBD and Mount Stuart. We also spoke to a couple who had obviously walked up the Hill, asking how long it took. They said around half an hour following the "goat track" as they do or an hour if you follow the road one way.

We decided to drive back to the caravan park via The Strand and on finding a convenient parking spot, we stopped for a walk. Obviously some were walking along The Strand for exercise, but not as strenuous as the exercise being done by those tackling Castle Hill. A chicken stir fry back at the van was on our dinner menu, but we couldn't resist the smell of fish and chips from the kiosk on The Strand. As we had done at Charters Towers, we chose battered Mackerel and it was as good, if not better than what we had there, although the Charters Towers chips were probably better.

Continuing our walk before returning to the car we came across Juliette's "for lovers of artisan gelato espresso coffee sweets" and a gelato  seemed perfect to follow the fish and chips. Lucinda had coconut and Bryon had passionfruit. It was a pleasant way to finish the day; sitting in the cool of the evening enjoying our gelato to the sounds of a guitar playing busker under the 'shade' of a large illuminated tree.