The Travels of Mouse: Torrid Townsville

Hello people, Mouse here.

Gosh, it’s HOT. I am a Black Dog. I feel the heat, even though my fur is sleek and flat and fine. And it’s hot. Yesterday evening at 11.00pm it was 30°C/86°F and 90% humidity. Tropical… Cold water is coming out of the tap warm, and the concrete slab here isn’t nearly as cool as it should be. Last night we had a thunderstorm pass over, O joy, but luckily the Staff spotted the clouds coming, checked the BoM map and slipped me something tasty in my drinking water. I snoozed through it all, although to be fair, there wasn’t any thunder the humans could hear.

Anyway, on to the travelogue. Lunch yesterday was Bowen. Dad had Pie and a Sausage Roll from Jochheim’s, and Mum had ham salad roll. I don’t say pickings were scarce, it’s just that it was more lavish when Mum was eating pie too. Still, I did scrounge some ham from her roll. We are on our way north to Cairns, and as usual, we are stopping in Townsville en route to break the journey and make the travel a bit more civilised and comfortable. In practice, this means I lounge around in the air-conditioned car, then I lounge around on my Floof, then I lounge around on my air-conditioned bunk whilst the Staff scurry to make things comfy for Me. Oh, and them, of course. We are staying as always at the doggo-friendly Discovery Park in Wulguru, Townsville.

This morning, the Staff took me out to a nearby café to enjoy some cold milk whilst Dad had coffee and Mum had a cup of tea (and he had most of my tea milk, can I just say? – Mum). I got lots of admiration and strokies from passers-by, which was most acceptable. A few groceries were bought, and then we went on to one of the nicer dog parks in the city, Riverside Off-Leash Dog Park, in Cranbrook. It’s fenced on three sides, and the fourth side of the enclosure is the river, so doggos who like that kind of thing can swim. I’ve swum there before, but I passed this time, despite the heat.

Can we go now?

A bit of token prancing about, and then I let the Staff know i was ready to back to the nice cool car… We don’t normally come north this late in the year because of the heat, but a trip south had to be cancelled once again due to pandemic/ hotspots/ border closures, so here we are. I don’t mind too much so long as I can get cool at regular intervals, but hanging around in the sun is for Mad Dogs and Englishmen, and I am Not Mad. Mum (an English person, poor thing) insisted on hanging about a bit longer, taking some pretty peeps of the trees and the weir. What can I tell you…? She is a Law Unto Herself.

And as observed before, it’s HOT. So after that we retired back to our nice air-conditioned caravan, Mum made a human salad for lunch (home made coleslaw with cabbage, apple, grated carrot and zucchini, tomato and chunks of watermelon, topped with smoked salmon and hard boiled egg 😛), which was apparently very tasty, and then we had a nice extended snooze. (Well, he did, I checked emails, Dad did some admin, His Majesty snored…).

We’re moving on tomorrow. As usual, I will be supervising things from the air-conditioned comfort of my Floof. I expect there’ll be coffee (and sandwiches or cake) and a puppacino for me in Ingham, as usual, followed by lunch in Cardwell. I approve of Cardwell. It contains Pies… (can you tell he’s our dog? – Mum). By mid afternoon we’ll be in Cairns, and I’ll be able to relax again. The site is shady, there will hopefully be a breeze, Mum says she’s hoping the swimming pool will not be too crowded, and I expect my lounging, scoffing and strokies opportunities will be ample. If it’s still so hot, the Staff will probably head either up onto the Atherton Tablelands, or up the coast along the Captain Cook Highway to take advantage of the sea-breezes. I’ll let you know what we get up to as we go along…

And now, back to the all-important business of snoozing. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz