Townsville and environs

I must admit to having been a little prejudiced about far north Queensland. I suppose that my experience of the area was based upon visits to Cairns and Port Douglas, and this has proved to be a little unrepresentative. Cairns is unkept and generally down at heel, and while I like sleaze, I at least like my sleaze to be clean. Port Douglas is full of people who think that walking between the jewellery shops constitutes real adventure. However on this trip we have discovered Cooktown, a village full of history, with a wonderful setting, and Townsville which is a revelation. I must admit that I was predisposed to like Townsville due to the greeting that they organised for us. As we drove into town on the Bruce highway (more on that later) two FA-18's roared overhead, playing chasey on a low level pass, and then going around, and then final approach and landing. Cecile was very impressed. I might mention that the other highlight of her holiday so far was in Atherton, when we looked up from the bench we were occupying in the main street to see the unmistakable profile of a Spitfire overhead. Townsville is a real town with a well organised tourist industry, but plenty of other industries as well. It exudes a purposeful air, and its public spaces such as the Strand and Flinders street CBD look like they are a subject of pride for the residents. We visited the largest aquarium in Australia, and the Museum of North Queensland which has a wonderful exhibition of the story of HMS Pandora, the ship dispatched to capture the Bounty mutineers, which was wrecked on its return voyage on the reef near Townsville.
We had envisaged staying in Townsville for a night, but it has proved an ideal base to explore the surrounding rainforest, so we have been here four nights so far. We drove out to Wannuman Falls, which are the highest single drop falls in Australia at 268 metres, and we have managed to do a number of walks in the rain forest. The true wet tropics, which in Australia are limited to the coastal mountains defy the wet / dry dichotomy, and receive rain all year round. Tully boasts a record of 7.9 metres of rain in one year, this compares with Daylesford which has an average of 1.2 metres, but parts of the Daintree Forest get up to 10 metres per year.

Exploring the country around Townsville has forced us to tangle with the Bruce Highway which is an evil road. Very busy, but only one lane for the most part, with few opportunities for passing, I am amazed that there are not more accidents on this road. Every day we see frustrated motorists taking ridiculous risk in order to get past slow moving traffic. Today we observed a classic case of driving. An old Honda Civic was poodling along at around 85 km/hr, and leading a long trail of traffic, perhaps 30 vehicles in all. Although the road was relatively straight, because it was so busy, we could only convoy along in his wake. All of a sudden, one of the few stretches with an overtaking lane appeared, ans this considerate fellow planted his foot and sped along the dual carriageway at 110 km/hr (the limit is 100 km/hr). Once we had returned to a single lane he resumed his progress at 85 km/hr. The day before we had had a very scary incident on the same stretch of road. I was driving along with the cruise control set at 101 km/hr when I noticed a large truck which proved to be a 'b' double, steadily gaining on me. He came up behind me, at first maintaining a reasonable distance. After a few kilometres, he edged closer and closer to my back bumper, and started flashing his lights. I felt as though we were about to play out some scenario from Duel. Now I would gladly have pulled over and let him pass, had there been any convenient place on this poisonous road. I resolved to pull over at the first opportunity, but he would not wait, and on a straight stretch he pulled out to go round. Unfortunately those rigs are not built for acceleration, and he had only managed to draw level to me when traffic began to bear down on us from the opposite direction. His response was to put his left hand indicator on, edge into my lane, and sound his fog horn. I had to stand on the brakes to allow him to re enter my lane and prevent a pile up. He then proceeded to drive the next 20 kilometres into Townsville at 100 km/hr directly in front of me.

While Cecile relaxed doing the laundry, I went to the IMAX to see a film about the Hubble Space Telescope. I was interested to learn that the technology was invented by an engineer in Brisbane, and that the original concept used a curved screen, so the film is projected onto a dome, beneath which the audience sits in a semi recumbent position. The Townsville cinema uses this system . This seemed to me to enhance the experience, but apparently proved to expensive to construct, and the IMAX now opts for a flat screen only.

I cannot resist the temptation to close with a quote which I have just read from one of my heroes, Christopher Hitchens. He was writing about General Alexander Haig, who you will remember was chief of staff to Richard Nixon, and Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan. Hitchens said "Now nobody has a higher opinion of Alexander Haig than I do. And I think that he is a homicidal buffoon"