Steve and Cathy's Blog

After a 154-nautical-mile cruise during the night, we arrive at Townsville around 8:00am.  There is what appears to be a recently built cruise terminal whose dock must also serve as a container port, as there is an enormous crane right on the dock next to our ship.  We exit the ship right on time around 9:00am for our four-hour Townsville and Billabong Sanctuary excursion.

Unfortunately, the PA system on the bus is on the fritz.  The attempt to fix it fails, so off we go a few minutes late with our poor guide standing and shouting information as best she can.  I am ashamed to say I forgot to write down her name, but she is a game Aussie and does manage to give us the itinerary, which is to go to the top of Castle Hill for a view of the area, visit the Billabong Sanctuary southeast of the city, and finally drive through the town before our return to the ship.

Enroute to Castle Hill, she introduces her city.  Gold figured into its establishment, as it did for many cities here in Queensland. In this case, it was the stockmen (what we could call ranchers in the U.S.) who were requiring a port that would not flood every rainy season, the cattle industry being developed in the 1860s to feed the gold miners.

To this day, Townsville is an important cattle port (second largest in the country, after Darwin), and the city serves as the city where stockmen from the outback west of the city send their children for school.  The city is also an enormous sugar exporting port, one of the largest in the world.  Its other industries include nickel, zinc and copper refineries.  The nickel is imported from Indonesia, but the other metals come from mines located in the interior of Australia not all that far from Townsville.

As we pass through some of the older suburbs, our guide points out the unusual architecture of the houses.  The older homes are all built with the ground floor empty (now used mostly as carports) as, prior to much flood control work, Ross Creek flooded the area regularly. Residents would annually move any belongings up to the second (main) floor until the waters receded.  Our guide notes that contemporary construction eliminates the practice, and she feels that that change will be regretted eventually due to the number of cyclones that recurrently visit the area.

We begin our ascent of the 938-foot tall Castle Hill.  Apparently this is a very popular park in town, especially around 4pm each day as the road to the top becomes so crowded with walkers that cars cannot get up. Even now, at 10am on a Saturday morning, we see dozens of people walking along the road.  Australians are noted for their love of the outdoors and sports, and what we see certainly is a good example.

We spend about a half hour at the top.  Our guide points out certain elements of the city, as well as Magnetic Island, so named by James Cook as his compasses went haywire as he was passing it.  Subsequent tests prove that it was Cook’s equipment and not the island that was the cause of the problem.  She also points out an enormous grammar school with gorgeous athletic facilities, and tells us that the school not only serves the people of Townsville, but also provides education to the children of the stockmen out in the outback.

She also points to Kissing Point.  She says that there are two possible explanations for its being so named.  One is that soldiers stationed in Townsville in WWII brought nurses from the local hospitals up to this place.  The other explanation was that troops that arrived here after a long, stormy voyage across the Pacific used to kiss the ground when they arrived.

In the direction opposite the sea are the new, sprawling suburbs.  It appears that the same suburban growth so prevalent in the U.S.A. is altering the landscape here as well.  There are shopping malls and subdivisions (they call them estates) everywhere, and our guide tells us that this is impacting the center of Townsville’s merchants. Sound familiar?

Before we leave, she tells us a story about Townsville during WWII.  The city was one of the most important garrisons of US troops during the war – up to 50,000 of them.  Some of them wanted to change the name of Castle Hill to Castle Mountain, but the rock was about sixty feet too short to make that official.  Some effort was made by troops with too much time on their hands to bring enough rocks up to the summit.  The effort was not successful.  The city still has a military presence as it is home to the largest garrison of troops in Australia.

Our bus leaves the summit and crawls down the narrow road into the suburbs.  We pass through them and, in another ten minutes, arrive at Billabong Sanctuary in the town of Nome.  This is a 27-acre wildlife sanctuary that opened in 1985.  Built by Bob and Del Fleming, the sanctuary serves as what some travel websites term as “Australia’s best interactive wildlife sanctuary.”  We soon come to know why.

We enter through the ticket and gift shop building and are assigned a guide.  Ours is named Kimberley.  She explains that we will have the opportunity to see several species of animals here, and then attend a crocodile feeding at 11:45am.

On our way to the first area, we pass by the billabong (lake) that was built as the center of the park.  There are dozens and dozens of birds walking all over the place, all perfectly comfortable to be surrounded by humans.  You can really tell right away that this is a very special place just by how the guides and volunteers talk about the place and how contented the animals are.

We enter an enclosed area and our guide Kimberley brings out Wanda the Wombat.  Wanda was inside her mother when Mom got hit by a car.  The mother lost her life but Wanda was saved and has been at the Sanctuary for her entire life.  As is the case with every species of animal we meet, Kimberley gives us a ton of detailed information on each.  Then we get to touch, hold or have our photos taken with each species.

Here is Wanda the Wombat:

We then are taken to an area where there are several koalas.

We move to a third area where we meet Blacky the black python and Dudley, a baby alligator.

Each time, we spend at least fifteen minutes getting educated on the animal and having the opportunity to interact with it in some way.  Soon it becomes time to move to the crocodile feeding are.  We pass by a cage with a couple of dingoes, which we understand are not cuddly and friendly.

Soon we come to a small pond surrounded by a chain link fence.  This is where the crocodiles are fed.  Soon we meet Ranger Ray, the person in charge of the crocs.  Then we meet Jupiter, a crocodile that came into the Strand Park esplanade in the middle of Townsville back in November of 2016.  It was quickly determined that a city park where people swim is a lousy place for him to live, so he is captured and relocated to Billabong Sanctuary. (By the way, the name Jupiter comes from a legendary aborigine stockman who discovered gold way back when).

The ranger explains that it is fall in Australia, and this is the season of the year where crocodiles exhibit the least activity.  For that reason, Jupiter is only fed once a week, and receives only a couple of pounds of meat.  To feed him more is to risk his gaining weight, which brings on ill health. Hopefully, Jupiter is in the mood for a snack, but we will see.

At first, Jupiter just lies in the water ignoring the meat.  Kimberley brings a second piece of meat to Ray, and so now there are two hunks of meat to tempt this 16-foot long crocodile.  That seems to get his attention, so for the next ten minutes or so, we see Jupiter chase the meat around.  That is also important to do, Ray explains.  Jupiter needs the exercise, for one thing.  Also, it should not be too easy for him to get at the meat because, otherwise, he will get listless.  Another bad thing for a huge crocodile.

After the show is over, we move on to spend some time with some small kangaroos,

and then a couple of dozen turtles.

Unfortunately, our time here is coming to an end.  On our way to the gift shop, Cathy poses for a photo with a crocodile sculpture.

We leave Billabong loaded with information and photos, and really wishing that our grandchildren could have been with us.  We especially miss them when we visit places like this.

Our trip to downtown goes through a newer industrial area where the copper refinery is located. Our guide says three more of these facilities are planned.  There is a parking area for “truckees,” the Aussie name for truckers.  We see two three-trailer road trains parked there (without the tractors) because they are too long to be driven beyond the truckstop. We pass by the North Queensland Cowboys stadium where this Australian professional National Rugby League team plays.

Our guide continues to talk about the local economy.  Cattle (including tallow and hides) and sugar are the two biggest exports, as well as the minerals refined in the city.  Many people living in Townsville actually work in the mines in the outback.  They put in two weeks straight at the mines and take one week off in town.

Before returning to the ship, we drive by one of the gems of the city: The Strand Esplanade (locally just referred to as The Strand).   This 1.5 mile long narrow park on Cleveland Bay is the pride of Townsville, so much so that they do not allow high rise development anywhere near the place lest people’s view of The Strand be impeded. Good idea, Townsville!   There is swimming allowed there because there are “stinger nets” in special areas.  Our guide says that the box jellyfish these nets are to protect swimmers from can actually kill a human being in as little as three minutes.  Hmmm.  I think I would stay on shore.

We are back on the ship around 2:00pm.  We pass through the cruise terminal and pass up all the tempting souvenirs.  We are starving!   Maybe it was watching Jupiter the crocodile being fed earlier.

The ship pushes away from the dock right on schedule at 3:00pm and we are on our way to Brisbane (645 nautical miles away).  We leave very impressed by this clean, prosperous and welcoming place that, up until a few months ago, we had never heard of.  Now we have, and we will hopefully be back again for another visit.