Thursday 10th October



Castle Hill, a heritage-listed isolated pink granite monolith towering
over Townsville. At 290 metres the views to the city below, and also
across to nearby Magnetic Island, are spectacular.
Or so I read. We decided it was simply too far and too high to climb!

 

Townsville, so good they named it twice or, more likely, simply couldn’t think of a better name. Despite my earlier pessimism, the place is growing on me. Our studio apartment is a block back from the seafront and we are both enjoying a full night's sleep for the first time in ages, despite sharing the room with a fridge-freezer. We hadn't realised until now just how little sleep we had been getting on the noisy seafront in Cairns. Much as I like a sea view I think we also need to prioritise sleep occasionally.

Our second full day here and we decided to visit the Museum of Tropical Queensland. It had an odd mix of exhibits that included various ecosystem zones, geophysical and palaeontology areas as well as a display about the people who came to Oz to build the railways. What was noticeable immediately about the railway exhibit was that the workforce was incredibly multinational. Most certainly came from islands in the Torres Straits, the South Seas Islands or from the indigenous Aboriginal population. However, men had also travelled from Europe, the USA, India, South America and China. In extreme working conditions these men managed to work and live together harmoniously, building railways through inhospitable terrain in Queensland and the Northern Territories during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Such easy acceptance of other nationalities seems little in evidence in today's world. Oz is no different and it's hard to avoid being aware of some racial tension. I make no judgement; I don't live here and want to continue to visit. I simply call it as I see and hear it.

Prior to seeing this Fo thought I had been winding her up
when I talked about a dugong. For those that don't know,
it's the only strictly marine herbivorous mammal.

The other main exhibit was about HMS Pandora, the wreck of which lies in about 30 metres of water off the Queensland coast. History buffs may recall that the Pandora was the ship sent by the Royal Navy in 1790 to hunt down and return to justice Fletcher Christian and his fellow mutineers on HMS Bounty. After searching many of the South Sea Islands the Pandora finally caught up with 14 of the mutineers on Tahiti, where they had settled. They were immediately incarcerated in a wooden prison on the deck of the ship which, unsurprisingly, came to be known as Pandora's Box. Christian was not found and the Pandora continued to search westwards towards Oz. What they didn't know was that Christian had taken the Bounty to Pitcairn Island, scuttled the ship and settled there. Pitcairn is well to the east of Tahiti and the Pandora had long since passed it by. Eventually deciding that he would not find Christian, the captain of the Pandora started his return journey. While searching for a passage through the Great Barrier Reef the ship was driven aground by a storm and sunk shortly afterwards losing about 35 crew and prisoners. We were utterly engrossed by the story line created by the museum but even this didn't stop us from falling asleep during one video presentation. Well.... it was a hot day and the seats were really comfortable. It was embarrassing though.



Must remember to suck in gut
when trying to look cool.

Our final adventure of the day was a haircut for me. However, we simply could not find a run-of-the-mill barber anywhere. And those we did find had gone out of business or were girly salons. I came to the conclusion that the modern Aussie male must either not cut his hair (plausible given the prevalence of pony tails) or he uses posey, boutique salons. The latter might even explain the demise of Australian cricket. Anyway, I eventually found a salon willing to do a simple clipper cut, though not without a little trepidation when I saw that the only other customer was sporting a cut reminiscent of Sonic the Hedgehog in his heyday. The lady in question seemed less perturbed by this than having her cheese sandwich lunch disturbed by a POM desperate for a haircut.

Believe me, it looks a lot worse in the flesh.

 

We did little on our last full day in Townsville but do the laundry, catch up with paperwork and get some steroidal cream for the rash currently creeping up my legs. You realise after a while that just about every plant, insect and animal in Oz is out to bite, sting, scratch or just plain eat you. And probably kill you too if you're not careful. Remarkably, the Aussies seem completely at ease with the risks. What an amazing place this is.