August 19 & 20 Townsville

Up until recently Townsville consisted of two twin-cities, Townsville& Thuringowa. Thuringowa was a new development area but the Qld Government recently forced through Council amalgamations so now the two are combined into “Townsville”. Yesterday the Council released their budget for the next year have increased rates by 15%. Obviously there are no government imposed limits and controls like we have in NSW.

There is a lot of development going on in and around Townsville – yesterday I counted seven buildings in the city with cranes on top. We’ve travelled through a few parts of the city where major road works are in progress. Actually the roads in Townsville are excellent. All major roads are either two or three lanes and there are cycle-ways along these major roads as well. Lots of intersections have turning lanes for cyclists.

While Townsville has The Strand as its beauty spot, Thuringowa has an area called Riverway. This consists of a walking track along both sides of the river, a cultural centre, a sporting stadium and a lagoon complex. The lagoon complex consists of two major swimming pools and a smaller wading pool but these are not ordinary swimming pools. (See the accompanying photos.) Yesterday we went down to have a look and were suitably impressed. We also went to have a look at the Cowboys’ Dairy Farmers Stadium and discovered that it actually owned by the Qld Government. We weren’t allowed inside so had to be satisfied with having a peak over the fence.

Today we visited one of the three Botanic Gardens in Townsville. It was called the Palmetum and as you may guess from the name was mainly about various palm trees. It was very appealing and attractive and also contained a memorial to the two Blackhawk helicopters which collided and crashed during a training exercise with 18 soldiers being killed.

We decided to go to Jupiters Casino for lunch – the Casino was nothing special but we had to become members to get the lunch discount.

It looks like the car will be right for Friday so we’ll leave here on Saturday and stay at Proserpine on Saturday and Sunday before moving on to Mackay for five nights. After that the next stop will be Rockhampton, then Bundaberg and Hervey Bay.