CAIT AROUND THE WORLD

Day 69. My little brother will get a kick out of that.

April 5, 2023 — I woke up in the morning and had a couple pieces of toast for breakfast after packing up the stuff in my room. I checked out and headed for the bus terminal which was about ten minutes from the hostel and which is a much easier walk when you’re not dead on your feet after an almost fifteen hour overnight bus.

I sat down in the abysmal heat and collapsed against my backpack. That’s the really nice thing about a backpack in my opinion: you pretty much always have something comfy to rest against when you’re sitting around waiting. It’s just not the same with a suitcase. I chatted with the girl sitting across from me who was also heading to Townsville, although she was taking Greyhound and I was taking Premier Motor Service.

I had a great experience with Premier on my first trip from Noosa to Rainbow Beach and this experience was good too, except for the guy in front of me who got on at the second stop and played his music without earbuds and who I’m pretty sure was smoking in the onboard bathroom. I drowned it all out as much as I could with my movie, I, Tonya, which I was finally watching, and then with music when I finished that. I worked on transcribing journal entries from the physical journal that I picked up in Newcastle to my personal travel journal on Google Docs because the physical journal got damaged in the rain on Whitehaven Beach. I’d tossed it that morning after taking pictures of the pages.

By the time I was done entering my journal entries, we were almost to Townsville.

Upon arrival, I got off the bus and caught the 200 heading to Kelso so that I wouldn’t have to walk so far. The fare was $2.80 and it was about five minutes on the bus, plus a couple blocks to walk. It’s a really good thing I decided to do that because when I got to the hostel and into my room, I found out that the air conditioning wasn’t really working. It was on, it was set correctly, but it just couldn’t keep up.

More disheartening was the fact that the kitchen didn’t have enough fridge space for me to use it. Thankfully, I didn’t have many things that really needed it. Instead of going out to Woolies and doing an actual shop for groceries, I went out and found something for lunch. They had a cheese and bacon pizza bun left in the bakery section, so I picked that up, and I also got some apples, crackers, and M&Ms.

I ate lunch in the park just down the road from the hostel and then walked some more, exploring the town and hunting for possible dinner options. I found several, but decided on Grill’d for that night. It’s an Australian burger chain with a hipster-type vibe and I’d overheard rave reviews about their burgers from someone on one of my tours.

So, after I’d gone back to the hostel and continued reading the book I bought the day before in a semi-cool spot of the main lobby, I went down to Grill’d and enjoyed a burger. In my opinion, they’ve got nothing on Leadbetters burgers back home, but they were good. Their sauce is absolutely excellent, though.

Weird guy story number two for the day: I was listening to a podcast while I walked across town to get to Grill’d. It was a good ten to fifteen minutes away from where I was staying and Townsville is not very busy at night. Generally, when a place isn’t very busy it doesn’t really bother me. But the vibe of a not-busy Townsville was bordering on kind of creepy. I walked through one of the lanes, through the city arcade, and was sort of following a guy in front of me. Eventually, out on the main street, I passed him, but we were going in the same direction. We were waiting at the same light on a street corner and he started talking to me. Now, I was wearing my corded Apple earbuds (which is nice for still being able to monitor your surroundings, but I wish they were actually noise-cancelling sometimes), so I could hear him ask if I was from Townsville or just visiting, but I pretended I couldn’t. He may have been perfectly nice, but I was already feeling a bit weirded out walking around and if you’re uncomfortable, you lie through your teeth!

Walking back after diner that night was more comfortable, but I was definitely glad when I got back to the hostel, showered, and curled up with my M&Ms and another new-to-me movie, Lady Driver. I called Mom and Dad after it finished, and then went to sleep.

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