The last week in Townsville...

G’day everyone!

As promised to my dive instructor this story of our last week in Townsville is going to be in English!
He is really trying hard to read Dutch, so this time I’ll make it easy for you, Fabs!!
For all the lovely people back home, it’s good practice ;)

The week started easy going, Monday was a recovering day after a great weekend. I spend quite a while on uploading pictures to my Facebook page. It is a tough job to select a few pictures from the heaps I have already taken! From Malaysia I have around 500 pictures and since we arrived in Australia 3 months ago I’ve taken over 3000 pictures!!
So if I keep taking around 1000 pictures a month I’m gonna run out of space on my hard drive before the end of this amazing journey.
Well…I’ll find a way when the time comes, because I’m not gonna stop taking pictures, everything is to beautiful :)
Around lunch time I called Frank and he was already asking around to help me find a car. There were a few more friends of him looking around for a car and he made a deal with Steve to drive us around tomorrow to have a look at the cars available. Steve is a good friend of Frank whom I met on the dive trip last Sunday.
That’s great, very happy that Frank could help us like that ;)

Tuesday morning right after Davy just woke up Steve called me to meet him at the RAD shop in half an hour. I absolutely appreciate that he wanted to drive us around and help us getting a good car for traveling! We said Hi to Erin who was working in the shop and set off to find a car. Steve had details off three cars, he picked the best one out to go look at and called the guy for his address but he was not answering his phone :(
Around the corner was a car dealer were Steve knew the manager from, so we went to see if he could make us a good offer on a car. Always good when you know people ;)
Daniel, the car salesman went looking what he had available and came back to show us a Toyota Camry Station from 1999. The car looked really good on the outside, it’s a station and you can put de backseat all the way down so you can sleep in it! The registration on it was expired so he needed to run a check on it first, to see if there is something wrong with it. If not he would sell it to us for $3000, which was the amount that we wanted to spend.
Meanwhile Steve had the address from the guy selling the other car. So we told Daniel we would think about it and drove off. Arriving there it was straight away disappointing, it was rusty and dents everywhere. To be nice we looked at the car and told the guy we would let him know if we wanted it.
But the Toyota absolutely won, so we drove back to the car dealer to leave my name and phone number.
He would get the car checked and call me as soon as it was finished.
Very excited and hoping that there was nothing wrong with the car Steve brought us back home.

After lunch time on Wednesday Daniel called me to say that the car was ready :D Yeah!!
There were two things that needed to be fixed and know it was all good for our journey. Davy had to work Wednesday evening so we agreed on Thursday morning. He offered to come and pick us up and bring us to the car dealer. Nice ;)
Davy took the bus in the afternoon to Castle Town shopping mall and I went to RAD for signing the last part of my Divemaster papers.

Thursday morning at 11.00am I called Daniel that we were ready. He picked us up an half hour later, back at the car dealer we took place in his office to short out all the paper work. After signing all the papers we drove to the bank to get the $2500 we needed to pay. We also got a bank statement which we needed for the registration. After we drove back to the shop again, allocated off and then it was time for my first drive in Australia! One of the salesman took us to the Queensland Department of Transport, he drove our Toyota with a temporary license plate and I drove with Davy in another car. I was really excited about driving again! But a bit nervous about driving on the left side of the road…the first thing I did was cleaning my window instead of putting my flasher on :p
Apart from that it went very well, it was just getting used to it! It’s a good thing that you have cars driving in front of you, so just follow them and you easily stay on the left side of the road ;)
We arrived after a few minutes driving at the Queensland Department of Transport, swapped the car keys, said goodbye to the salesman and went inside to get registration on our vehicle.
I had to fill in 3 different forms, a lady at the counter had to put it all in the computer. Because I was not registered yet it took a little while. We could choose between 6 months or 12 months REGO. Since it’s a bit difficult to extend registration when you are in another state we took 12 months. That cost us $933, see gave us the license plates and we were know officially owner of an Australian car :)
Back at the car we screwed the license plates on it and here we go! Our car has automatic transmission so it’s easy (lazy) driving. But it drives very well, nice and quiet!
The first thing we did was stop at the gas station to fill the tank. Now we had our own car I felt absolutely free, we can drive anywhere we want now!
Since we were nearby we went to JB Hi-Fi to ask how the order on Davy’s laptop was going. It would be a pity if we had to wait a long time for it now we had a car to travel on. It was a strange order, but in the end he was able to cancel it, because it would not arrive in at least two weeks, which was far too long!
The other JB Hi-Fi in town had the laptop in stock so we drove to that store to buy it. Really weird, because when ordering online there weren’t any in stock. Anyway, he has his laptop know :)
In between we made a stop at Subway to get a sandwich, which was very good.
After getting the laptop we drove back home, parked the car at RAD because it’s free parking in that street and walked home.
Davy started unpacking his laptop straight away :) totally happy with it! It’s a pretty cool thing, a sort of combination between a laptop and a tablet.
Around 8pm he was able to put it aside and we went to The Strand for a barbeque, which was very nice! We had kebabs, shrimps, capsicum and garlic bread. I also brought a bottle of white wine and two plastic cubs instead of wine glasses :p
When the night-sprinklers came on it was time to go home!

Friday we spend on getting all the things we needed before we’re heading off.
The first stop was at RAD , I noticed Steve’s (Soda) car on the side of the road and I was hoping that maybe he could help us. He just finished his Divemaster Exams when I walked in and of course passed!
Happily I told him that we bought a car but sadly that the cigarette lighter is not working. He took a look at it and told us we needed a new lighter and that he could put it in. He was very kind and led us to Auto Cheap Store. There we bought a new lighter, motor oil, a jerry can for petrol and one for emergency water, jumpers and a cross key. We already had a spare tire and a jack, but no cross key, which does come in handy if we need to change tires ;)
It took a while but he got the cigarette lighter working! Yeah, now I only have to buy a car charger that goes on my laptop so I can still write stories while traveling :)
After he put it all back together he led us to Anaconda, the camping store because we wanted to buy a swag to sleep in. A swag has a loose mattress in it which we can lay in the car for sleeping inside or just use the swag for sleeping outside.
We thanked Steve for taking us and walking into the store. Lucky for us they were having a big sale on swags, $120 off!! It was somewhat a difficult decision, there was one for $130, a middle class for $170 and a pretty fancy one for $230. At first I went for the middle class, but after a while I changed my mind and decided to buy the fancy one. Mostly because that one got ventilation screens on head and food side. You can open the top all the way and it has a 7cm mattress instead of 5cm. There is 24 months warranty on it and I’m planning and hoping on using a lot more than only here in Australia. So I’ve decided it was worth it :)
Davy’s first decision was the basic one but he changed his mind in the end and bought the same as I did.
Now that the cigarette lighter was working we stopped at JB Hi-Fi were I bought a charging for both my mobile phone and my laptop, so now I can write stories, play music and be accessible all the time cause I’m not running out of battery :p
Our last stop was at the car dealer. We had an orange light of the engine burning in the display, so we wanted it check out. Daniel was there and came straight to us, he was happy to get that checked. He drove us and the car to an auto mechanic, he put a computer on the car to read what’s wrong with it. The first guy where we went didn’t know what it was, his computer said un identified failure. So we went for a second opinion, that computer told us that is was a malfunction in the pollution control device. Which was nothing to worry about, they said. And since he is a mechanic and I’m not, I believe him…
But it’s nice that we had it checked and we know why the light is burning.
Back home I stopped in front of the apartment building so Davy could take our swags in, I parked the car and walked back. Me trying to walk past RAD unseen failed! So I had a little chat with Fabien to arrange my ‘farewell party’ for Saturday night.
Davy already started cooking and had to work after we had diner. I opened my box with my swag as soon as he left and put it all together. Really happy with it, it looks pretty cool :D The traveling can begin! When Davy finishes his last day working at JAM, which will be either Sunday or Tuesday.

On Saturday we went to Castle Town shopping mall to buy a fitted sheet to go around the mattress in the swag and we bought a road atlas/map of Australia, which probably will come in handy while driving around this huge country!
Davy started working at 7pm after we had some food. It was clean-up day, a mix of everything we still had in the fridge, but it still was pretty nice!
After Davy left Mellissa and I started to dress up while enjoying a vodka raspberry!
A little after 8 we arrived at the Brewery, got ourselves a drink and soon Fabien, Eridani, Prince Harry (Greg) and Priscilla (Jason) came to join us. A bit later on Rat (Howard) and his girlfriend joined us as well.
I had a great night, absolutely enjoyed it! Very happy to spend my last Saturday in Townsville with these great people I’ve met :D
Davy was done working around 11pm, came to the Brewery and we all left to the Bank!!
Were we danced our ass off all night long :D The later it was the more people going home. I stayed with Mellissa till the end, bought a donor on our way home and fell asleep at 5am after an awesome night out in Townsville!!

Sunday I woke up at 11am, Davy had to start work this morning at 6.30am :( With my sleepy head I walked to Woolworths for some bread and other grocery. Davy had a break at 12 and came home for a sandwich. He was feeling a bit sick, which I found kinda funny because he drunk the least :p
After half an hour he went back to work until four for the last time. Meanwhile I packed all my stuff ready for leaving Townsville tomorrow morning!
Around 4pm I went to get my dive gear at RAD, Steve, Frank, Nathalie, Amanda en Fairy just came back from Pelorus.
I missed these guys yesterday so I was happy to see them one more time before I leave!
I needed Steve’s help again because the cigarette lighter wasn’t working, he and Frank took a look at it and fixed it :) so now it’s working perfectly!
When they finished up cleaning all the weekend gear we had a drink in the kitchen at RAD, chatted about the places a should go to! Which I really need to write down before I forget them ;)
After we finished the drink it was time to say goodbye…
Pretty sad about that, I’ve met a lot of great people in the 2,5 months we’ve been here and I really enjoyed the time I’ve spended with them!!
I had a great time doing my Divemaster course with RAD, enjoyed all the 56 dives I made with them in the 9 weekend trips and 2 army weeks I was on!
Thanks Fabs for being my instructor, I had a great time with you!
I loved being alone on the Island with Steve, that was amazing! Enjoyed spending Christmas with you and your friends, watching movies and helping me out ;) Gonna miss the Ego’s! But I’ll be back, Steve :p
Had a blast on the weekends with Frank, he promised to take me to Bramble Reef before we left which was awesome!! And I absolutely appreciate that he helped us getting a car!
Fairy thanks for the skill circuit, really enjoyed doing it and your way of teaching!
Prince Harry took off before saying goodbye…. :p Good luck with your Divemaster!
Mellissa and Kieran, thanks for sharing your apartment with us, felt at home with you guys! Loved watching movies with you girl!
I’m gonna miss you guys!!

Till we meet again…