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Ann stowing gear as we leave Mooloolaba

Jay & Carol on Gandalf

Wilm & Helga from Hooloplop enjoying champagne and cake on Jeff’s 59^th birthday.

After 650 miles of hoping along the coast we reached Townsville. Townsville is a clean and efficient industrial town that also lures tourists to the Great Barrier Reef. It boasts a clean zinc smelter  with railheads where trains empty and docks where ships load minerals from the Queensland outback. A memorial to Australian war dead graces a beautifully landscaped park along the waterfront. The city is home to a large Aussie army base as well as an air force base. During WWll up to 100,000 healthy American troops passed through, the infantrymen headed to places like Guadalcanal and sailors bound for ships later in the Battle of the Coral Sea. Two airstrips were built for American bomber and fighter groups. Many US servicemen wounded in the South Pacific received treatment in hospitals in Townsville.

                        Our Townsville taxi driver explained that Captain Bligh was sent back from England to Tahiti where he captured 12 Bounty mutineers. Bligh then sailed through the Great Barrier Reef near Townsville and wrecked his ship Pandora. The taxi driver explained that she was distantly related to Bligh. When we showed interest in that remark, she said also that her great great grandfather on the other side of the family arrived in Australia in 1868 on the last British convict ship. A fascinating woman with interesting relatives, even if it was a bit of a stretch.

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