Townsville

Last week I had a couple of days in far north Queensland - in Townsville - somewhere I had never been before! When we lived in Port Moresby we spent a fair bit of time in Cairns (which is about four hours drive north of Townsville) as a long weekend / shopping trip destination but I really haven't explored the area at all. My expectations of Townsville were quite low, given that it's beef, army, the reef and not much else ... but I was pleasantly surprised, it has a lot going on and it's very pretty.

I definitely think a long retirement driving holiday could be in order. Or maybe not driving, it is about 2200km from here if you go the boring inland route. It took most of the day just to fly there, via Brisbane.

This is me looking hot. It was only about 26 degrees and breezy but I am acclimatised to the Canberra winter. My flight back was at lunchtime so I went for a long walk in the morning along the esplanade which was very pleasant. I didn't bring my swimmers sadly but there looked like an excellent swimming lagoon. You can allegedly swim in the water without nets from May - October but I don't know if I would risk it.

Most of the time was work (or what passes for work in my world) - flying about in a helicopter with the ramp open.

And walking out onto a very windy wharf right on the east coast. It feels very remote, with a whole coastline of nothing leading to more nothing in both directions.

There was also some research tanks - heat resistant coral! Bring it on I say, thumbs up for all the people doing amazing things with their gigantic brains.