By the numbers
1 museum
1 bloody tough walk up a hill
15.29 kms
20783 steps
Active time 214 / 60 mins
The morning started with two coffees and toast as I was in a motel that had a toaster and microwave. The best part is I have a fridge, so I don’t have to head out to the restaurants for a feed. Once I was warmed up and ready to move as I had a date with a museum on the first day after Townsville exited lockdown. The night before it sounded as though every man and their dog was out driving as I could hear cars when I went outside. Once I left to visit the Museum of Tropical Queensland, I had around 40 mins to make the 10 min walk. That ended up with me getting distracted while walking along The Strand that takes you along the waterfront in Townsville. By the time I got undistracted I had 10 mins to end up at the museum.
By the time I arrived the museum had not opened yet and would be the first time after Lockdown had began that it would be open. Also it had been closed for several years and had only just reopened in the last month or so. I wanted to see one particular exhibit and that was about the HMS Pandora. This ship had been tasked to capture the HMS Bounty after the mutiny. This was the exact same ship that William Bligh had been thrown off. The Pandora had captured some of the Mutineers and placed them in a box on deck known as Pandoras Box. The men would suffer from the heat and little air circulation. The ship would strike the Great Barrier Reef and would sink with around 30 people lost. The return journey took a while as they had life boats, but there was a point where some more prisoners were found and thought to be mutineers, but they were escaped convicts from Australia. The wreck had several expeditions to recover artefacts around the 1980s onwards where they found a sextant, bottles, a fireplace, locks from prisoners and even shells the sailors would have sold once they went home, although only part of the wreck has been excavated if that is the right word, and there were parts of the vessel that was found, which proved it to be the HMS Pandora. I did sit and watch the video about one of the journeys. That was the reason for me visiting Townsville.
When I entered the museum, I had a really helpful tour guide tell me about the exhibitions including the Pandora. There was a travelling exhibition of Roman artefacts and displays, although there were some interesting things there, but were mostly reproductions to show examples of what their life would be like from war to entertainment. There were some pottery and other things from the time period. Other displays in the museum included nature, which was from some dinosaur finds in Queensland to the importance of mangroves and even where to find them in Townsville. It wasn’t a huge museum, but I was satisfied with what I had found and I stopped there for coffee while listening to some people who were complaining about coffee to go as they didn’t want to sit down. My coffee as it was bought to the table was filled a little bit too much and I was able to drink it without my mask on as I had to wear a mask in the museum.
I decided to go wandering over to where the maritime museum was located in town as I wanted to see what it looked like, but I wasn’t going to visit two museums in one day as I wanted to explore more of Townsville. There was something at the roundabout nearby that I wanted to take a picture of. There was the light of a lighthouse that was in the roundabout near the maritime museum and I ended up doing a blocky as I ended up with lunch, which was a pie and sandwiches. I found a park near the Victoria bridge that I found out was once a swing bridge that was once the main bridge into Townsville that was to be demolished, but had been saved and was now a bridge for pedestrians. I had seen the sign much like the Brisbane sign in Southbank the day before and I thought I was in the wrong area. There was also an information panel about Eddie Mabo and his life, which I didn’t realise he had been a local resident. He was once buried in Townsville, but further research showed his remains had been moved to one of the islands after his headstone was vandalised.
Before I crossed the bridge a local random guy started having a chat with me and asking how I was. I told him I was chilling as I had only just gotten into town the day before. I didn’t know who he was so all I was doing was chilling. Crossing the Victoria Bridge I had been contemplating walking up Castle Hill via a track called Goat Track. Following my map, I headed to the track as I was thinking it would be a pretty easy walk. Turns out I had miscalculated in the trail going up the hill. Goat Track was a grade 3 track where the stair became much worse going up. An elderly man passed me twice as he went up and down, several other locals did the same as I was huffing and puffing thanking my lucky starts that the afternoon heat was not within the middle of summer. I had to stop several times as I knew I wasn’t very fit anymore. I nearly turned back several times, but once I found the road, I was actually not very far from the summit of Castle Hill. The strange thing was the headstone for Captain Robert Towns whom the town was named after was just in the carpark. It had been moved from his Sydney grave. Looking around some of the lookouts, I came across an old pill box that would have been from World War 2. It was starting to become late and I wanted to walk back down the hill following the road. The road was easier than the tracks as they all seemed to be grade three. I was going down hill, but the road was sloping and windy around the hill. This meant more people were walking up this way as it was a shared route for vehicles and pedestrians. Maybe next time I wont struggle by following something called a Goat Track.
The walk was actually much easier as I walked back to the hotel as I was now hot and sweating not wanting to have stinky sweaty clothes in my room, hoping that I could use the washing machine I had found the day before. I walked through the botanic gardens, although there wasn’t much there and a wedding was happening, so I wanted to avoid that. I ended up having a shower once I returned and the washing was on. By the time I hung it out it was dark, but the clothes were dry by the time 9pm came around. Damp spots on two pairs of shorts, but everything else was dry, so Townsville helps with something and I was not expecting dry clothes at night.
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