Townsville is a great bustling city, a tourist’s galore, that a 2 night stop at simply does not cater for.
We checked into our accommodation exhausted but excited. We stayed at BIG4 Walkabout Palms Townsville on a powered grass site, excellent for our caravan. Larrikin A immediately pulled on her swimmers and ran at high speed to the excellent pool, complete with a waterslide. We spent the rest of the afternoon here, of course – larrikin M also enjoyed the waterslide, opting to ride it probably a total of 100 times!
We spent our full day exploring a range of the attractions available – the Reef HQ Aquarium, a top pick of larrikin A’s, was a great aquarium experience whilst larrikin M’s suggested Billabong Sanctuary – 11km out of Townsville – allowed us to get up close with beautiful native fauna. We then went and enjoyed the holiday park’s pool again before dining at Seasoned – a restaurant boasting delicious modern Australian food.
In 2014, Townsville had a population of 236,629 people, with this number being divided into 118,768 males and 117,861 females. The median age for the city is 34.5 years old. 18.6% of this population was born overseas, with the most overseas migration occurring from North-West Europe (comprising 4.2%). It has been said that Townsville welcomes 78 new residents weekly, which contributes to the annual population growth in this city of 2.4%.
Townsville Approximately 87,537 people work in Townsville, with the biggest industry being Professionals (approximately 15,680 people), followed by clerical and administrative workers (13,245) and technicians and trade workers (13,129). Townsville has a reasonably high unemployment rate of 10.6%, however, it was said to be approaching 15% in August 2016.
This city, which is adjacent to the main section of the gorgeous Great Barrier Reef, boasts a range of recreational activities alongside the well-catered-for attractions for all the tourists. Tourist attractions other than the ones previously mentioned in this blog include a lengthy tropical beach and garden strip referred to as “The Strand” and Riverway, which is a riverfront parkland attraction. Well known for its excellent diving and snorkelling facilities as well as its high availability of sporting clubs, Townsville offers endless options of recreational activities from sport to arts and culture, nature to shopping, scenic drives and walks to delicious dining and eateries…Townsville really does has and offers it all! To discover more about opportunities in Townsville, please visit https://www.townsvillenorthqueensland.com.au/things-to-do/.
Unique features of Townsville? Wow, there’s definitely many answers you could reply to that question! From the topsy-turvy climate the city experiences, including tropical cyclones, as part of a “tropical savannah climate”, to the tourist attractions mentioned above, Townsville is unique in many aspects, with only a few being outlined in this blog.
Factors driving change include the availability of work in various industries. A boom in population in Townsville has been directly linked to the town’s popularity for FIFO (Fly-in, Fly-out) miners as well as short to medium term workers brought in by the army base and other government services. This contributes to Townsville having a younger population than that of Australia-wide and Queensland averages. Similarly, the construction of high-rise apartment buildings contributed to the city’s urban layout allows the city to effectively cope with this rise in population.
Townsville can be described as utterly unique and a superb place to both live and visit…you definitely cannot cover it and see it all in only a few days! As we move on in our journey, we are eagerly looking forward to what awaits us.
Bidding “Au Revoir” or “Goodbye”,
Larrikin E
Squishy Sand Travel 