A Farewell to Castle Hill

I am going to be leaving Townsville soon. This has been a very difficult decision to make, and I’m still not sure if I’m doing the right thing, but sometimes you can never know if something is the right decision or not unless you give it a go. And so I find myself having to leave behind all that has made me happy over the past year, in order to move south to Brisbane. Hopefully it will work out, and I will do my best to make that happen, but if it is not meant to be then I will return to Townsville.

This move means I need to say goodbye to my friends, and it is easy to decide what to do with my main group of friends!

We meet up at a lovely coffee shop on the Strand to caffeinate and refresh, before heading for a ride up Castle Hill. 

After refreshment, we take a vote on whether or not to actually ride the Hill – the weather has been oppressively hot and humid lately, and it is impossible to do anything, even sit still, without sweating buckets. It makes physical exertion very uncomfortable indeed, and even waiting until the sun is very low doesn’t diminish the heat and sweatiness.

The vote is split, Jen, Mick and Bec are not too keen to head up the Hill, while Lucy is raring to go and has been looking forward to it. As a compromise, I decide to go up the Hill with Lucy (it was my idea after all…) while the others go to Bec’s house nearby for a glass of wine. Lucy and I will go for well-earned ice cream afterwards, then meet up with the others for the rest of the evening’s plans.

Lucy and I head up the Hill, we go at a very similar pace to each other so it is very pleasant chatting about different things we have found in Australia – Lucy is Dutch, but she has been in Australia much longer than I have. 

Another famously bad selfie...

Trying to get a photo of Lucy over my shoulder

I am working too hard to get many photos, but we pass so many people out on the Hill. People walking and running mostly, some even pushing prams, and a couple of cyclists pass us too. Castle Hill is always busy, and it is pretty heart-warming to see so many people getting out and being active. You see people of all shapes and sizes having a go too, and I feel a lot of admiration for the people who seem to be having a more difficult time of it, but who are still putting in the effort. It’s pretty inspiring :)

My newly installed bike computer, that may or may not be accurate, tells me that a lot of the time I am only going at about 7-9kph. This is pretty slow, so slow that the occasional runner catches up to us and overtakes. But we chug away, we stay cheerful and we don’t stop.

Eventually we make the top – I didn’t time it and now I kind of wish I had, but we enjoyed the journey and the sense of accomplishment so that was the main thing really.

Lucy's recumbent and my Trek hybrid

We chat to a few people at the top, some who we know and some who are strangers just being friendly.

Then we hear the ice cream calling to us, so we get back on the bikes and roll down the Hill. You can build up a lot of speed on the descent, but you have to take it easy: first of all there is a 40kph speed limit, secondly there are lots of walkers and runners to avoid, and thirdly the road winds a lot so you can’t always see cars coming up and you need to be able to avoid them too!

Back on the Strand, we head to Juliette’s for ice cream. This is my favourite ice cream place in Townsville, they have a great variety of flavours and they often swap the flavours around too, so you will normally see something new to try each time you go there. I normally just get one scoop, but Lucy gets two and I am easily led… I get a watermelon sorbet and a honeycomb ice cream; maybe not the best combination, but each of them is delicious.

After this it gets too dark for my camera to be much good, but our next stop is the Rockpool swimming pool. We lounge in the water, where the others catch us up too, and we all chat away as the sun sets.

Luckily for all of us, Mick asks what time we are going for our fish and chips dinner. Rushing out of the water and clamouring to get changed, we all make it to the chippy just in time to get our orders in before they close up for the evening – phew!! We carry our food back to the Strand to eat, but it is not the usual restful picnic spot down there this evening. There is no wind, so the humidity is cloying, and the combination of still air and recent rains means the mosquitoes are out in force. We have to eat while doing elaborate hand dances to keep the mozzies away, but we still all get bitten.

Mick wants to go for another swim as it is so warm, and I am keen as the mozzies can’t bite you in the water! We head back to the Rockpool for one last dip before cycling home, it has been a lovely evening but I am a bit melancholy when I think of leaving all this behind. New beginnings can be very exciting, but sometimes the excitement can be eclipsed by the sadness of the ending that precedes them.