Sublime to...

Having complained earlier this trip that there was too much free time, now I'm back to whingeing about the more usual too little time. Our scant single night on Magnetic Island in our very flash apartment at Peppers left us wanting more, as did the drives to Horseshoe Bay in one direction and Picnic Bay in the other: brown sandy beaches of turquoise water in between sculptural headlands of granite boulders. Even the lifeguard doing his routine sweep for stingers didn't put is off.

But it was on, on, back to Townsville and away north through the cane fields, up to the little but self-important town of Ingham and the super-tall Wallerman Falls, a single drop of 268m down a granite cliff-face. It was a long drive, but worth it, and on the way back there were cute agile wallabies (that's their species, not a description - they weren't actually doing much at all, though the one hurtling across the road in front of the car was pretty nimble) and lots of these Droughtmaster cattle, which we'll learn more about tomorrow.

And tonight? In the Lee's Hotel, where it's more about character than comfort, proudly claiming to be the original Pub With No Beer in the Slim Dusty song; and also keen to show me "out the back - we've got an acre of bitumen car park. We've got semi trailers out there!"