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The annual Townsville trip where we head off for 2 weeks and boulder our hearts out on some fantastic granite boulders. First stop is Bowen for some beach bouldering and snorkelling!
The road trip up to Bowen was quite an adventure on its own, travelling on the coastal A1 for roughly 1100km. We stopped off at the Calliope River Rest Area for a night on our long journey. We had good company driving up by listening to the album Sour by Olivia Rodrigo on repeat along with some Brisbane bands like Cat Empire.
The second day most of the cars made it to Bowen and went bouldering as soon as the doors were unlocked. We spent 5 wonderful days at Bowen, bouldering, slacklining, snorkelling , swimming, and of course card games. We watched all the beautiful sunsets and some of us like Yimin watched the sunrises too.
We enjoyed the company of the oldies with some line dancing on Thursday evening and proceeded to watch the sunset on the slacklines, while some of us went for an ocean swim. The last morning, we were all in a rush to pack up and be on our way to Townsville to restock and then head into the Hervey Range to our next destination, the middle of nowhere.
With the promise of amazing climbs at Harvey’s Marbles we were excited to be in the middle of nowhere and it later was a blessing in disguise. The first full day at Harvey’s started off with a heavy mist threatening to wet the rocks and prevent us from climbing. We persisted and our anti rain dances worked as we went off to climb. Some of us were taking rest days because of climbing injuries already been had, which meant I could take some pictures.
The clouds were constant while we stayed at Harvey’s which made for some great climbing temperatures, however it stopped us from star gazing. One night we went to star gaze on the boulder pads, let’s just say it was cosy on 4 of them.
We wanted to go climbing at a place called Andromeda, but it was a 50 min walk from our campsite if we got the directions correct. We trekked over there and the rain started, but that only dampened our moods for a little bit. It also turns out if you go in the opposite direction from the campsite, you can get there in 10 mins, good to know.
We soon heard about the news of lockdowns happening in Brisbane, Townsville, and Magnetic Island, which was our next destination. Many conversations were had about what to do and what we could do.
We were in a dilemma as we were not in the Townsville region which meant we didn’t have to lockdown, but we desperately wanted to go to Maggie and some people had flights to catch back to Brisbane. We came to the decision to stay at Harvey’s until Friday and we would then head back down to Brisbane stopping off at some cool places.
A few cars went to Eungella National Park and saw some platypi while some other cars went to Airlie Beach for 2 nights and enjoyed the warm winter in Queensland. Overall, it was a fantastic trip with lots of memories being made and friendships growing stronger. I am looking forward to the next Townsville trip and I hope to see you there!
Written by Daniel Salomon
