About Townsville
Townsville was founded in the 1860s as a port serving cattle stations and later the region’s booming mining industry. Its strategic harbour and railway links helped it grow quickly, and it eventually became the main commercial centre for North Queensland.
Today the city mixes industry, military presence and tropical lifestyle. The Strand waterfront is the social heart, Castle Hill towers over the skyline, and ferries head across to nearby Magnetic Island. It’s sunny, practical and proudly North Queensland — a working city with a holiday backdrop.
Credit: chatGPT
Our journey
At 351km the drive from Cairns to Townsville is one of our longest. Steve doesn’t mind driving but is fairly ambivalent about it – it’s just a means to get from A to B. Nikki on the other hand enjoys driving, so she set off with a view to swapping. However, whenever we talked about it she said she was fine and actually ended up doing the entire trip. Probably a good thing as we are told Queensland police are notoriously hot, and sneaky, on speeding so it probably saved a few tickets.
Our journey was not helped by being a very wet drive, where some of the downpours verged on biblical. On occasions Nikki had to slow right down because we could barely see out of the windscreen, although it didn’t seem to stop the huge 18-wheelers that regularly sped past us and deluged us with even more water.
When we set off we planned on breaking the journey with a few sightseeing stops such as Tully, Cardwell and Rollingstone but as we approached each we realised we would not be able to get out of the car, so just pushed on. However we did have one slice of luck. There were regular road signs to a place called Mission Beach, which looked cool. As the clouds seemed to be lifting, we decided on a brief detour to check it out. It was actually bright and sunny by time we arrived, and the spot was beautiful – palm fringed beach, blue waters, calm sea and a hippy beach bar – see the Mission Beach post.
The town
We eventually arrive in Townsville at 4pm having left just before 10am. We have a lovely 2-bedroom apartment for this part of the trip, staying 3 nights.
For our first evening we head along a promenade walk known as the Strand. Once again we pass an impressive free to use water park, and many of the now familiar public BBQs. There also the usual warnings about crocs and stingers – it seems amazing that a croc could be so close, if not basking, in such a public place.
We end up in a beach bar called “Longboard”. It’s an amazing spot looking across the bay back to our apartment, the harbour and the marina. After a stroll to orientate ourselves, we return to the bar for a sharing platter of briskets, ribs and wings which, yet again, totally defeats us.
We dedicated Wednesday in Townsville long ago as “chores day”. We managed to keep our total luggage to around 35kg each but it would have been 70kg without chores day! We spend the day catching up on washing, reorganising our packing etc, making use of a lovely pool next to the sea in the grounds. Actually it was a lovely day.
Nicholson
Andrew Nicholson is a native of Townsville who worked with Steve back in the noughties at the MOD in Bath.
We were a team that peaked at 24 in Bath, and despite the unusual client that is the MoD (for 3 months you had to be escorted to the loo), it was honestly like being on holiday and being paid for it. The work was tough and demanding but we had some fun in the evenings. Every evening seemed to have some permutation of 2,3,4,6, 8 up to 24 going out for dinner. Steve stayed for 3.5 years in a city centre hotel, so rarely missed out. As one of the consultants was prone to say “I hope I bump into this bloke Riley soon so I can give him his life back”.
Anyway, back to Andrew. He came over to UK around 2004 with a view to staying 2 or 3 years, and in 2022 he came back home as a dual citizen. Some stay.
He saw on Facebook that we were travelling, so we met up for a beer and dinner. We agreed to meet at Longboard and as we approached, Steve said “fuck me, it’s Edmund Hilary”. To say his beard is wild would be an understatement! We spent a very pleasant evening reminiscing about Bath, colleagues, parties (he came to our company 10 year party in Henham in 2008, a party another colleague described as Beverly Hills 90210). Andrew also regaled us with tales of local Townsville life and history. Who knew that the Battle of the Coral Sea was the first time the Japanese navy were defeated in what was until then an unprecedented winning streak, a loss that marked the turning of the tide in the Pacific war.
After a lovely meal at Watermark, we said our farewells and hope to see Andrew on one of his annual returns to the UK.
Magnetic Island
The Island is found 8 kilometres off shore from Townsville, and was named by Captain Cook after he experienced some magnetic interference on his compass. As it turned out there is nothing ‘magnetic’ about Magnetic Island, and consensus is that his compass was simply broken !
We had booked a half day tour around the Island which promised to be no more than 14 guests and caught the 8.45am ferry to join up with our guide. As it turned out it certainly was a small group tour, as there were just two, Steve and I. Our guide Neil, who lives on the Island, joked about discussing the individual tour price with us.
As it was just us, he asked us if there was anything in particular we wanted to see / do, to which Nikki said ‘wildlife’, as we were still a bit disappointed we hadn’t seen any wildlife so far, other than some spiders, cockatoos, and a dead wallaby by the side of the road.
Our wildlife ‘hunt’ proved very successful thanks to Neil’s knowledge of the island.
First up were Rock Wallaby’s, which Nikki had the opportunity to feed some snacks too, they were very cute and not at all dangerous; this was followed by a Possum, very well hidden in a tree, so much so that we would not have spotted it at all if it hadn’t been pointed out to us; also some ‘agile’ wallaby’s slightly larger, very shy, also not dangerous; some eastern cave bats, very small and not at all dangerous, and to top the day off a Koala, not very cute at all close up and surprisingly probably the most dangerous given how sharp their claws are, assuming one dropped out of the tree and landed on your head of course !
We had an idyllic ‘liquid’ lunch stop at Horseshoe bay, a little more sight seeing, and then were dropped back at the Nelly Bay to pick up our return ferry.
We had a great day, Magnetic Island is very beautiful, and we looked with envy at the many homes perched on the cliffs overlooking the beaches, there is even a 9 hole golf course there. However, WiFi is spotty at best and no 5G, so it wouldn’t have suited Steve’s digital nomad mindset.
As a side note, Neil did not support Tottenham (or any football team) so unfortunately Steve didn’t have the opportunity to regale him with his story of playing footie with Glen Hoddle in his youth, but if he had of supported them, it would no doubt have impressed.
Wildlife of Magnetic Island
Hamish says
Townsville is the biggest city on our road trip so far and indeed is regarded as the regional capital of North Queensland.
There is the beach front strip, The Strand, which is typical seaside with bars, beach bars and restaurants. A couple of streets back from that you find the livelier part of town with lots of restaurants, bars and even nightclubs. Obviously we did not hit a club, but given bars close between 9 and 10, we assume clubs are shut by midnight 🙂
It was great to meet up with an old colleague as well. Townsville was yet another spot we really enjoyed and Steve felt another couple of nights there would have been great as it felt like we only scratched the surface.
What's next
We have another long drive to Airlie Beach where we pick up a ferry across to Hamilton island and our 5 nights in the Whitsundays. We have long felt this could be a highlight of our tour and are both really looking forward to our Bed, Breakfast and Buggy at the Reef View Hotel on the island.
Little bit of pressure though as we have a 10am checkout, and have to cover the nearly 300km drive to catch the ferry at 3.05pm. Game on.