On the way I stopped at the Macrossan Bridge over the Burdekin River to get a pic or two of the flood depth marker and the bridge. When you consider how much land would actually be under water given the height of the floods on the indicator it is almost unimaginable.
The Count gives scale to the sign, given the largest flood the Count would be more than twice it's height underwater
Hard to read but what year and what height
You can see the size of the span and how low the water level is now and it is still a sizable flow, so given the height of the floods the Count would still be underwater at this point
and in case you cant visualise with the size of a Morris Minor, that is a standard size delivery truck you'd see everyday on the streets of any city. Notice how small it is in the scale of the bridge
From there it was straight back to Townsville, a short run really of only about 155 kilometres, though the closer to the coast the more the dark clouds rolled in until finally about 10 kilometres from Townsville the rain thumped down and thus continued to hang about and rain off and on all day, so most of the photos are working with a very grey sky. The drive back to the coast was even better given that I only had to pull over to let the road trains through three times, I would have thought it would have been a lot more often.
I find Townsville an unusual kind of place, there is a lot of development being done and obviously lots of money spent on the town and infrastructure etc., but the new bits look new and the old bits look like they have just been left, so some areas just don't seem to mix well together. The Strand and all the work along the front there is fantastic and on a nice day would be packed with people enjoying it I am sure. It seems though that walking along the main shopping street that people just don't come into the city, they must stay out at the suburban shopping malls and as such there are a lot of empty and covered over shops in the main street and it just looks a bit sad, given all the "beautification" they have been doing. I am sure given time and the number of apartments in the city centre though the people will come back from the suburbs to enjoy what is otherwise and attractive town centre.
Some random street pictures of Townsville:
One of the beautified city streets
Bit of colour in what would be an otherwise sever looking concrete Court House
The Strand, they are about to have a V8 Supercars street race (thus the flags). Magnetic Island in the background
More of The Strand, path and parks stretch from the city all the way to Kissing Point, 2.2 kilometres
More of The Strand looking back towards the city
Public art, "Dazza and Shazza"
Looking back towards the city and harbour
Lagoon Pool at the Kissing Point end of The Strand, Lagoon pools, everyone has them!
The area at Kissing Point used to be home to the Army's Jezzine Barracks, it is now a memorial park, and according to the lady at the tourist office it cost about $20 Million to redevelop. Beautiful spot, but very glad I managed to get a tour of the old Barracks and the artillery tunnels last time I was here as most of it is gone now
Castle Hill from Jezzine Barracks
Looking back to the city from Jezzine Barracks lookout point
Casino through the harbour "mast" field
City park, Remembrance Memorial and Eternal Flame
Townsville tomorrow as well and then off to Cairns...
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