Townsville

Townsville was named after Captain Robert Towns who sailed from England in 1827 and originally settled in Sydney as a mercantile agent.

In Sydney his wealth grew and he gradually kept buying up property further north.

By 1865 his northern interests totalled a million hectares of pastoral land.

Towns financed the Cleveland Bay settlement  and brought in South Sea Islanders to help establish the settlement.

Captain Robert Towns statue

Towns only visited the area once in 1866 to inspect the wharf and other work that had been done, but spent the whole time confined to his quarters suffering from bites and blight.

The Ross River enters the sea just to the south of the city and it is strewn with mud flats and mangroves.

We had a voucher for a city tour on a trike which our daughter Leann bought us for Christmas 2016. (The voucher, not the trike)

On the trike for a tour of Townsville

This tour is operated by Steve and he was very accommodating even though the voucher was more than 20 months old.

The trike which was built for him in the states cost him $50k 4 years ago, is powered by 2 litre Ford Focus engine and has a 5 speed transmission just like the car.

Steve grew up in Townsville and told us of him catching mud crab and barramundi along the banks of the river, but not so much now.

Crocodiles have been seen coming this far south and one was caught last year about a kilometre up the coast, right at one of the city swimming beaches.

Steve took us around for 2 hours and showed us all the highlights of the city area.

Street art in Townsville

Street art is a feature of a lot of the older building walls and it is really well done.  The city centre has a lot of empty shops as the suburban shopping centres are taking over, so the council it trying to brighten up the city to encourage people to come back into the city.

The highest point in the city is Castle Hill which is 286 metres above sea level.

Castle Hill got it’s name as sailors coming into the bay could see it from miles out and they always said it looked like a castle.  Being this high, there are some awesome views from up there.

View of Townsville and Magnetic Island from Castle Hill

Townsville has a large aquarium which is said to have the largest living coral reef in Australia.

Tropical fish

  They don’t have all the huge sharks and rays that you see in most other city aquariums, but they do have a huge range of colourful tropical reef fish.

Judy sitting at the base of this huge tree

The Anderson Gardens has a diverse range of local trees and palm as well as imported palms and cycads.

This Arenga Australasica  is a native of NE Queensland and Northern Territory and has the biggest trunk and canopy of any tree that I have seen anywhere.

We heard some eerie, high-pitched wailing noises coming from the bush during the night where the caravan is parked, and on investigation we found it to be coming from the endangered Bush Stone Curlew.

Quite by chance as we were walking through Anderson Gardens, Judy spotted one of these birds sitting amongst the leaf litter, almost perfectly camouflaged.

Bush Stone Curlew

  It sat perfectly still, even as I got closer to it for a photo.

Townsville sits at the base of Mount Stewart which is 584 metres above sea level.  A winding road takes you to the top of the mount where you get an excellent view of the city and beyond.  

On the left is the huge army base which we were told houses 10,000 people, it is almost another city on its own.  To the right of centre of the photo is Castle Hill with Magnetic Island in the far background.

View of Townsville from the Mount Stuart lookout

Going further to the right is the city and the port.  To the far right and 50 kilometres out to sea is the Great Barrier Reef. 

Magnetic island is a small island just 8 kilometres off shore from Townsville, so it is only a 20 minute trip across on the ferry.

Ferry to Magnetic Island

The ferry leaves the Port of Townsville amongst all the cargo ships that come and go.  We were surprised to learn that sugar is the biggest export through this port.  Incitec Pivot import a lot of fertilisers through this port, so I felt quite at home given that that is what I did for a lot of my working life in Melbourne and Geelong.

The ferry docks at the terminal in Nelly Bay on the island and there are “hop on, hop off” busses waiting at the terminal to take visitors around the island.

Nelly Bay ferry terminal on Magnetic Island

The island is a blend of national park, holiday accommodation and a resident population of about 2,000, with huge granite boulders and hoop pines towering into the skyline.

There are 4 little townships on the island with an over abundance of coffee shops, pubs and eateries.

Horseshoe Bay on Magnetic Island

We took the bus to the far end of the island to Horseshoe bay which has a beautiful beach and a host of water activities.

The island hosts a week of yacht racing starting on the first weekend of September so there were a great variety of yachts moored in the bay.  My, how the other half live.  Big flash boats with little run about boats in tow so they can come ashore.

You would need a day in each of the little towns to explore the various bays around each one of them as well as the other attractions they have.  We were a bit limited, as there were no hire cars available because of the yacht race, so we were stuck with public transport to get around and you know how much I love that (not!)

Sugar Cane must be 8 feet tall

We took a trip north along the Bruce Highway to Ingham, about 110 kilometres from Townsville.

This is real sugar cane country with literally thousands of acres of sugar cane at various stages of growth.

The whole area is chris crossed with what must amount to hundreds of kilometres of narrow gauge railway tracks, which the sugar trains use to haul the harvested cane to the mill in Ingham.

One stationary train we saw loaded and ready to be taken in was just under 800 metres long.

Willaman Falls

From Ingham we travelled a further 45 kilometres west to have a look at Willaman Falls, which is Australia’s highest single drop waterfall.

Not only is it the highest in Australia, it is the 249 highest in the world.  

This waterfall which is in the Girringun National Park  is 540 metres above sea level and 268 metres high.

The pool at the bottom is 20 metres deep.

What an awesome sight, well worth the hours drive up the windy road to reach the look out.

On the way back we found a little wayside stop called Frosty Mango.

Our granddaughter Sophie would be in her element here as they have everything mango that one could imagine, from cakes to ice cream, mango pies and mango thick shakes.

(Sorry Sophie, we ate them all on the way home before they melted, but I did take a photo for you).

Townsville seems to us to be built around heavy industry and mining.

Glencore have Australia's biggest copper refinery here which process copper concentrate which is railed in from Mt Isa.

Sun metals have a zinc refinery here also which has Australia's largest privately owned solar power farm.

This solar power farm, which seems to be spread over about 100 acres, produces 125 MW of power which is 30% of the power used in the refinery, as well as supplying some power back to the grid.

All the black bits are solar panels in the solar farm at Sun Metals in Townsville

Sun Metals is obviously confident in their operations at Townsville as the solar farm which only opened on the 17^th August 2018 cost them $200 million to build.

Queens Gardens with Castle Hill in the background

Townsville’s Queens Gardens at the base of Castle Hill were originally planted by the early settlers with fruit trees as an experiment to see what grew best here.  The fruit trees are gone and have been replaced with a myriad of rainforest plants.  These are well protected by the huge White Fig trees which must have been here for hundreds of years to have grown this big.

Huge White Fig tree in Queens Gardens

Having left Townsville behind, we start heading south on our return trip home.