Townsville continued to be troublesome. There were only a few dive operators running trips to the Yongala and only one in the days that we were in town. The only other diving option was to go out to the Great Barrier Reef on one of those cattle herding FantaSea boats, which neither of us were keen to do. We visited the one boat going out to the wreck within our time frame and we were told that the conditions had been so terrible for the last few weeks and there was a snowball's chance in hell that we were going to get to the site. Brilliant, absolutely bloody brilliant. Townsville had done it once again.
Jon was shattered. He had wanted to go diving so badly. Think of what a three year old would look like if you told them Christmas was cancelled and you've got half the idea. As a poor substitute, we went to the aquarium and he walked around all forlorn that he couldn't swim with the fish.
Reef HQ was quite impressive. The centrepiece is a 2.5 million litre tank of living coral habitat with all of the colourful fish, eels, rays, turtles and sharks. There is a tank of predatory animals that replicates the flora and fauna found at the Yongala complete with a replica shipwreck. Didn't help matters much. The Night Tank was staggering with glow in the dark fish and luminescent fish.
Still, we had fun and the wreck will be there to dive later. The pirate toy Jon got at the gift shop made him feel a little bit better and we went off to try the TexMex restaurant by our hotel.
It had to be done. The question had to be answered: Can a place that is neither Tex or Mex make a good burrito? The answer is a resounding no.
The upside: American beer (for nostalgia's sake) which can be hard to come by here
The downside: Montezuma's revenge knows no bounds
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