DAY 150
Week 22
TOWNSVILLE (Queensland, AUS)
Friday November 17th, 2006
TODAYS MILEAGE – 61 miles or 98 kilometres
TRIP MILEAGE – 27302 miles or 43938 kilometres
Off to the Doc!!! 
For some reason Fluxy was up at sparrows fart, so at 5:30AM I was chauffeuring him the 27 kilometres (17 miles) out to Yabulu Refinery where he and Sonia work for BHP Billiton. I enjoyed the drive as it gives you a bit of time to yourself, but could see how people tire of the commute.
Seeing I was up anyways and as the doctor said I should come on in today, to have the stitches removed from my left hand, I headed to the Townsville Hospital and parked up just after 6 AM for them to take a look at me. It only took three hours for them to get to me this time, but I was a bit apprehensive in regards to the doctors outlook to the wound.
She pulled the 12 stitches out, but the wound wasn't completely sealed so the claret started to flow. The Doc tapes me up with a couple of Steri–strips and sent me on my way. I thought that the stitches may have came out a bit too early, but you have to weigh up the fact that you know your own body against the doctors training and supposed experience. In the end, I'm like – they're the professionals, just let it go.
Hopefully it wont come back to haunt me.
Fluxy finished up around 1:30 PM, so we headed over to Kenny's joint to see what he was up to. I reckon Kenny is a dead ringer for John McEnroe but by no way is Macca (as I was calling him) an arsehole like the American tennis player, he's full-on good peoples.
Anyways, we were having a barbeque that evening so Macca had a nice big Coral Trout (that he'd caught), thawing out on the kitchen sink. With nothing much else on the go, we thought we'd take a run up to the top of Mount Stuart, which overlooks Townsville, for a bit of a butchers. Being a Friday arvo and all, we thought it would be a damn fine time to crack open a XXXX Gold stubbie.
I think it was more that Fluxy and Sonia always put on a great spread at their place, rather than me being town or anything, but one of our great mates Shaun "Mary" Frerichs, who lives in Charters Towers (Queensland) stopped in for the evening with his young fella Jake in tow. They were headed up to Ingham (Queensland) for the young fella to play a bit of cricket. Charters Towers is located 135 kilometres (84 miles) Southwest of Townsville, while Ingham is 111 km (69 miles) North of Townsville, so the kids sports up here can take some time an cover some mileage I reckon.
In the process of the evening we also managed to have a chat with some of our former Westies rugby league team mates from when we were all in Alice Springs (Northern Territory). Archie "Ten Dollar" Tanner, Ian "Bozo" Bowie and Randall "Queeny" Quinliven were all on the blower at various stages of the evening.
A top night was had by all.
• TOWNSVILLE ~ Mount Stuart (Queensland, AUS)
• TOWNSVILLE ~ BBQ @ Fluxy's (Queensland, AUS)