marinegirl

I went adventuring today and caught a bus into town. Townsville is either very camp, or has some kind of sports team called the cowboys… as there are ‘I love Cowboys!’, ‘Go Cowboys!’ etc posters everywhere.The city has a very odd layout, its like lots of smaller towns stuck together, each has its own mall-like shopping centre etc. and a different style. Along the main road into town shops seem to favour the splashy-trashy look I’d associate with America, huge oversized neon signs, giant revolving golf balls on the roof of a sports store etc. Turn off the road however and you end up in perfect Desperate Housewives-style suburbia, colourful houses with picket fences and pools and palm trees in the garden, on steets with names like waterdragon close, or riverbend drive… I want to live here!Some of the shops in the town centre look rather cheap and scruffy and by lunchtime the pubs were reassuringly full of guys with ponytails and short shorts swigging VB infront of the rugby (I know this from glancing through doorways… I didn’t dare go in!). I got a bit lost and came across a variety of drive thru liquor stores (!!!) and club boasting to host australias first wet-t-shirt competition. A couple of streets away and you end up in the smarter end of town with lots of trendy looking bars and cafes, expensive looking apartments overlooking the marina and uplit footbridges across the river. I found an amazing noodle bar called chilli jam for lunch. Theres also a massive aquarium and museum thats spost to be good to, I’ll have to go there soon.The road crossings are scary, and sound as though you’re in a video game… they bleep contsantly once you press the button, then a siren goes and you have approximately 6 seconds to dash across the road till it goes red again.I then wandered down to ‘the Strand’ which is the beach strip. I expected the cosatline to be crammed with hotels and bars etc, but buliding has been strictly limited, theres hardly any high rise buildings, and the seafront is really lovely and unspoilt. Just back from the beach theres a shady row of palm trees and then a path which, if I was more energetic, would be great to jog along, with chin up bars etc placed along it. Theres then communal areas with barbeques and a water park which are all free to use. Thers fantastic views out to sea and over to Magnetic Island all the way along. I didn’t have my camera with me, but I’ll put some piccys up on Flickr next time.On the way back I went to the shopping centre nearest uni, which looks really new and is supposedly the best. Lots of great clothes shops, will need to be buying flipflops and shorts soon now we’re coming into Summer. I was most upset to discover that you cant get Aussie shampoo in Australia! Apparently it’s not as authentic as it seems, I feel so cheated… Despite being called Woolworths the supermarket was pretty good too, loads of fresh fruit and veg and good fresh meat and fish counters. Only forseeable problem so far is that nowhere seems to sell down pillows!Bex x