Townsville...

Playground of the idle itch

London, Paris, Townsville, Rome, New York. There was a time when the name of our northen coastal city would jar in such illustrious overseas company. But not any more!
A recent Courier-Mail story (right) broke the news that Townsville was set to match Paris and London in the icon stakes by building a 100m statue on the city's imposing landmark, Castle Hill. Travel editor Don Gordon-Brown had this uncontrollable urge to fly to this sub-tropical playground of the idle itch to see for himself.

Mercifully, our Ansett flight is free of the many scores of excited, expectant, jabbering French and Italian tourists who will soon dominate air travel in and out of sub-tropical Townsville.
Instead, the usual mix of middle-aged people - the women in floral blouses and chocolate-coloured slacks, the men in open-necked shirts, stubbies and thongs - grab a portside glimpse of Castle Hill just before the airliner banks to make its descent from the east, the muddy waters off The Strand a pointer to the north's heavy rain over recent months. A few look like they are on business; most are probably just visiting relatives or returning from visiting relatives down south. Everyone seems to have relatives in Townsville; as we come in, the little suburb of Oonoonba - my mother's birthplace - seems unchanged, as always this century, to the city's south.
Castle Hill looks its usual imposing self, chest all puffed out to make up for the fact that it's a metre or 120 from being a man-mountain. I wonder briefly how the city that lives in its shadow will cope with the influx of hundreds of thousands of European tourists who will be flocking to see, soaring high above Castle Hill, the planned 100m high statue of a pioneer woman holding a hurricane lamp.
Soon, we are in the car park atop that imposing edifice, between the two little hillets served by steep paths that provide such a panorama across to Mount Stewart, away to the deep, deep north, to the sugar fields of the Burdekin to the south, to the east Magnetic Island where my parents honeymooned straight after the war.
Will the icon go on the little hill already festooned with communications aerials and buildings, (right) or, perhaps more sensibly, on the other hill a bare 30 metres away (below left). Will there be lifts up to the top of the Woman with the Hurricane Lamp, just like the Eiffel Tower in Paris? And in peak tourist season, how will authorities manage the tens of thousands of people waiting patiently for hours for their turn to take the lifts, or for the very fit, the long climb up the internal stairs that they'll remember for the rest of their lives.
At least the lucky ones will be able to take turns getting themselves photographed beside the monument to Roberts Towns (right again), the inventor of the sand fly for which Townsville is so rightly famous.
As we return to our rental car, we can't help but shake our heads at the imminent transformation of this peaceful, people-free site into one of the world's most easily recognised postcards.
It's back down the windy road to the city centre - it will probably have to be widened somewhat, all things considered - where other delights beckon.
What will tourists used to the high-life of Monaco or Cannes say when they first take in the incomparable Ross Creek Marina (pictured below left) surely the equal of none anywhere in the world. And every home-sick Italian worth their pasta will surely shed a tear or two when they spy this great northern city's other main landmark, the unforgettable Leaning Tower of Townsville. (below right).
We let the awesome power and majesty of this beautiful city sink in as we sit in the city mall, thankfully devoid of the citizenry, as usual.
It all becomes a little too much, and we hastily make our way back to the airport. The short trip is made in silence but it is a comfortable silence; we are literally lost for words.

IN OUR NEXT ISSUE: how free return economy flights for two to Townsville could be yours!