Townsville 18 – 23 August 2014

Drove down the highway towards Townsville, through heavily treed forests and expanses of water – seems strange after months of stunted plains. Townsville is the largest city we have visited this trip – about 170,000 with a strong military presence. It is an attractive city set around a busy harbour, with Magnetic Island clearly visible to the east. On Thursday Judy and Bill came up for a visit. Like us they are enjoying Townsville, finding it attractive and the locals friendly. The HQ Aquarium is remarkable with an authentic representation of the numerous plants and fish that make up the Great Barrier Reef. There is an amazing variety of living things of every shape, colour, propulsion and size that fill every niche of the reef. It also reinforced the fragile nature of the reef and how quickly the natural balance can be altered, so it is of real concern that the government has approved the dumping of mining waste at the reef. The Botanical Garden was also exciting with the large variety of tropical plants and we were all inspired to plant lots of beautiful plants in our gardens. On Friday we had a look at the Museum of Northern Queensland, which has the remains of HMS Pandora, the ship that was sent to Tahiti to capture the Bounty rebels, but sunk on the Great Barrier Reef. We also explored the northern beaches, which have an enormous rock pool to stop people being stung by the poisonous jelly fish.