This morning I needed the full forces of the Townsville Military regiment to help me battle an ant infestation that suddenly appeared in the van. Of course, they had more important things to do so I was left to my own devices. Even Ray had more important things to do because he was MIA (missing in action).

Henry decided that he didn’t want his breakfast. So it sat in his bowl outside for a little bit too long. The ants decided they might like to try and relieve him of it so they marched into his bowl where they were camouflaged. I then decided I would put his food in the fridge for later and transferred the ants into the fridge.

So, I had a trail of ants going inside on the floor and then running amok in the fridge. Henry then decided, once I had tipped the contents of his breakfast bowl into a plastic bag intended to throw away, that he did want his breakfast, and proceeded to eat his breakfast out of the plastic bag, ants and all.

By the time I had emptied the fridge, cleaned up the ants and was sitting down with a glass of water and sweat pouring off me from the escalating humidity. Ray came back. That man has impeccable timing. He had been visiting Tim.

Tim was one of the men who we met at the rest stop on the side of the road when we were travelling from Emerald to Chartres Towers. We ended up staying in the same caravan park in Charters Towers. And now it seemed, we were staying in the same caravan park in Townsville.

Ray and Tim seem to get along very, very well. Tim’s wife is flying in tonight (she had been working while he has been doing some travelling and testing out their new rig) and Tim had been busy doing all the washing in their Winnebago, so it was all fresh and they could travel further on together.

Ray had been having a morning coffee with him while I had been having head to head combat with the ants.

It was necessary that Ray replace a hose on our caravan because he seemed to have the wrong hose compared with everybody else that we had seen in our travels. This wouldn’t normally worry me, except that Google informed us that the wrong color hose meant made from the wrong materials, which also meant it could be dangerous to our health. So, being the open minded husband that he is, ( he’s also very familiar with the saying “happy wife, happy life”), Ray promptly listened, researched and knew that he needed a trip to Bunnings. Luckily, Bunnings is one place that you are allowed to take your dogs. So Ray and Henry had an excursion together while I had an excursion to a shopping center.

I got a full report when I was picked up a couple of hours later. Henry was in his element, being wheeled up and down at Bunnings in his trolley and receiving an amazing amount of pets and love from everyone he came across including the staff. This is not unusual on our travels and he is lapping it up. He just loves riding in any vehicle including it seems a Bunnings trolley.

I spent a blissful couple of hours shopping, buying some Autumn gear which I had delivered straight home to Melbourne which seemed to be a good strategy because I won’t need it for the remainder of our trip. I love a good shop and it was nice to walk around in air conditioned comfort and pick up a few necessities also.

After being picked up, we decided to do some more sightseeing. We made our way to see the Jezzine barracks. These barracks used to be working Barracks, but the whole area including the Kissing Point Headland has been made into a Tourist attraction. Unfortunately, true to our form we were too late to go into the museum as it was only open from 9 AM to 1 PM. But we were able to go around and have a look at the beautiful buildings and the gardens. These Barracks are actually at one end of The Strand so we didn’t have far to go to get to our next destination.

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The strand is like the Esplanade that you might see in other beachside suburbs. It runs along the foreshore and there is accommodation and shops like coffee shops and eateries built underneath apartments and along side them. We drove along until we found a coffee shop that looked like we could sit outside comfortably with Henry and Ray went to order something to eat realizing he hadn’t had any lunch. I took Henry over the other side of the road where the grass was green to see if he needed to do a wee. He received plenty more pats from people walking along the wide pathway and he stopped to gaze out at the water. I wonder what his nose picked up coming in from the ocean on the sea breeze?

We returned to Ray eating fried fish and dim sims. Next door was an ice cream bar so I waited patiently for him to finish and to be ready for dessert.

I’m a huge ice cream fan and will always look for licorice flavour first. My absolute favourite. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any here so I consoled myself with chocolate and cappuccino. Ray had one scoop of honeycomb. Henry tried a bit of cappuccino and didn’t mind it.

We returned to the van, ready for battle number 2 against the ants but I was pleased to see that not only did I win the battle, but it looked like I won the ant war! Phew!