Cheap Car Hire Townsville Airport

Just a 45-minute drive from Townsville, Paluma is the perfect spot for a relaxing break from the city. Whether you enjoy taking long, romantic walks across the sandy beaches, or treks through rugged bushland, Paluma Range National Park is an awe-inspiring wonderland for all to enjoy.

Along the range, Little Crystal Creek and Big Crystal Creek are great places to stop for a picnic lunch or barbecue. You can also stay the night at the designated camping areas, as long as you order a permit in advance. With a large swimming hole and beautiful waterfalls, this is truly a wonderful place to stop for the night (or longer).

Hidden Valley is also a great place to stay and you can also get  daily tours to see platypuses and other wild animals. Stay at the Hidden Valley Cabins eco-retreat and you can enjoy a home-cooked meal, just like Mum would make.

If you’ve ever wondered what Australia was like back in the late 1800’s, a trip to Charters Towers should give you all the information you need. Just an hour’s drive from Townsville, Charters Towers sends you back to the days of the goldrush, when gold was first discovered in the area back in 1871.

The person who first discovered that there was gold in the area, was Jupiter, a 12-year-old aboriginal boy who stumbled across a nugget of gold when he was looking for some horses that had bolted after a flash of lightning had frightened them.

Thanks to the goldrush, Charters Towers quickly became the second largest town in Queensland and was once a prosperous town full of people wanting to make their mark on the landscape. While you are visiting Charters Towers, don’t forget to pan for gold at the Miners Cottage or view the town from Towers Hill. You might also want to check out the Charters Towers after dark ghost tours where you will walk the town’s streets while hearing about great crimes and tragedies and, of course, goldrush ghosts and hauntings.

Further on, Ravenswood is a small township, and like Charters Towers was originally a gold mining settlement. Today, it’s a living tribute to the region’s history, its old hotels and buildings fully restored so as to give visitors a taste of what it was like to live during the goldrush. This well-preserved town once had a population of over 5,000, and more than 50 pubs; today you'll find a couple of pubs, and a general store along with other small businesses. The best way to take it all in is to park your hire car and walk amongst the historic buildings and heritage-listed sites, the old mining shafts, mullock heaps, and rusting machinery.

Known as the sugar capital of Australia, thanks to the sugar mills in the region, Burdekin is a bird-watching paradise as well as the perfect spot to view Australian flora and fauna.

As one of the only areas in Australia that still burns cane prior to harvesting it into sugar, the Burdekin horizon is often bright orange, with the cane fires and a lot of the industry centres around the crops which are the biggest in the country. The shire’s two main towns are Ayr and Home Hill, both great places to stay while you enjoy a variety of fun adventures including off-coast reef fishing.

Not only is Burdekin a well-known fishing spot, it is also among the world’s top diving spots. From Alva Beach, divers can explore the wreck of the SS Yongala, home to a variety of manta rays, bull sharks, barracudas and turtles.

At 1,103 metres, the Burdekin River Bridge is nearly as long as the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and spans the river between the towns of Ayr and Home Hill. The bridge rests on 11 concrete caissons which have been sunk into the river bed, and is the only bridge in Australia built on sand.

Just an hour’s drive south of Townsville, the region is laid-back, relaxed and perfect for a break away it all.

When you’re in Townsville, you simply must go to Magnetic Island, so named because it had a magnetic effect on Captain Cook’s ship compass when he was sailing along the east coast.

Operating eight times a day, the car ferry takes 40 minutes to get to Magnetic Island from Townsville, so you can do a day-trip (or stay longer, if you want). From cheap accommodation for backpackers to Nelly Bay’s luxury hotels and resorts, Magnetic Island has places to stay to suit every budget.

You can’t visit a tropical island without taking a dip in the ocean and for snorkelling and swimming the best spots are Nelly Bay and Geoffrey Bay. You can also dive or snorkel the reefs in Arthur or Florence Bays.

Home to 180 different bird species, Magnetic island is a bird-spotters dream. If you enjoy hiking, the Forts Walk is an easy two-hour trek leading to the ruins of a World War II fort designed to protect Townsville. For a shorter and just as picturesque view of the surrounding ocean, take the track along the eastern side of Horseshoe Bay. You can walk to Radical Bay and on to secluded Balding Bay (but note that this is a nudist beach). Make sure you only take the track at low tide, as the walk becomes inaccessible during high tide.