The North Queensland region of Australia encompasses numerous historic towns and breathtaking eco experiences. Published statistics claim more than 19 million people visit this region annually. There is a lot to experience and visitors often combine a Townsville visit with a driving tour, day trip or short-stay holiday to other interesting parts of the region. The beautiful Whitsunday Islands are best experienced with a short-stay visit. What we offer is diversity and choice of holiday options. The cost is affordable and your holiday experience will be stress-free. The tropical life-style will suit family members of all ages. We invite you to read the following descriptions of our neighbourhood to gain an insight into taking a holiday in Townsville.

Our home is an air-conditioned property in the beach suburb of Bushland Beach. It is a 25 minute drive to almost anywhere in Townsville. Daily summer temperatures hover around the low thirties and winter temperatures hover around the low twenties. Townsville has a major university that has specialized in tropical lifestyle and marine research. The city houses the Great Barrier Reef Interpretive Centre & Aquarium. Parking in Townsville is generally free or affordable.

Townsville has two viewing lookouts. You can walk or drive to the summit of Castle Hill at a height of 300 metres. It towers above the CBD and provides stunning easterly views across the city beaches and Magnetic Island and westerly views to the hinterland. A northerly view from the top of Mount Stuart includes the layout of Townsville and Ross River delta. The winding sealed road to the summit of Mount Stuart is the training track for Townsville's three-time Olympic bobsled competitor.

A lovely picnic spot on a balmy sunny day nestles amongst mature gum trees at the historic Cobb and Co horse changeover post on Harvey's Range atop Australia's Great Diving Range. The heritage building is now a coffee shop with meals and a small, but interesting, free public interpretive museum that explains a little of its 150 year history. There is a nature walk behind the complex.

Townsville has activities for all ages. People take leisurely walks or ride push bikes along paved paths of Ross River and Strand. Both have free public swimming pools with life guards. The city's flagship public space is the beautiful 2 km long Strand beach walkway with pubs, beach restaurants, piers, ice cream parlours, fresh water, shark enclosed ocean swimming pools and ocean walled rock pool. It's a very pleasant walking experience. The path is edged with lawn and mature shady coconut palms which sway in the sea breeze. Public facilities include gas bar-be-ques, tables and benches, open air gym equipment, public lawned ovals, one-on-one-basketball court and a water play park for children. The sailing and rowing clubs use part of the beach on weekends. An area known as Jezzine Barracks adjoins the northern part of the Strand. It was once a defence force area. The area includes a cliff overlooking the ocean at Kissing Point. It was redeveloped with the historical service buildings now used as a small art gallery and a small museum. The space is partly lawned parkland and partly planted with local vegetation. The paths lead to historic sites including indigenous interpretive cultural sites. The mature park trees have grown to their full height and provide welcoming shade for seating along the paths.

The city tourist information centre promotes self-guided city walks to see historical sites around the business centre (CBD). The council operates the region's major art gallery and several museums, Riverview is a sports precinct on the banks of Ross River. Owned by the city council, It has a free open-air movie centre, two free swimming pools and a centre to hold free public expositions.

The are some popular natural swimming spots beyond the city boundaries. About 30 minutes drive up the Great Dividing Range are two places to swim in waters that cascade into rockpools.

You'll find many sporting and similar interests within Townsville. For the interested there are sailing and rowing clubs, vintage bi-plane flights, a miniature train circuit operated volunteers for families with young children. You can even go to a horse-riding school. There are two daily ferry services to Magnetic Island. The express ferry operates up to 11pm and there is also a car ferry. The city and suburbs have modern shopping malls and movie theatres, fine dining clubs and alfresco cafes.

High energy social activities include plenty of dancing opportunities, swimming, athletics and ice skating. There are sporting clubs for golf, tennis, lawn and tenpin bowls and just about anything else you can think of. Water activities include fishing, scuba diving sites and dangerous sports like sky diving and four wheel driving, The Australian professional motor racing circuit comes to town during the second weekend of July each year. The race circuit is a street circuit close to the CBD.

June to August is a time for cultural events including Australia's foremost annual Chamber Music Festival. Participants proclaim it as a world class event. We have a bi-yearly sculpture competition on the Strand called Strand Ephemora. Some exceptional pieces have become permanent exhibits. You can have a flutter at the casino anytime or enjoy the winter horse-racing carnival which has several big annual events programmed.

Townsville is the home of two professional national sporting teams. The North Queensland Cowboys National Rugby League team (winter) and Townsville Fire women's Basketball team (summer are teams that have won their national competitions. Seats at home games are not expensive. Tickets are available on-line or at a ticket booths at the gate. The NRL homes matches are played each fortnight in the CBD at Townsville's new stadium and are mostly scheduled on Saturdays evenings.

There are historical century old pubs that are interesting to visit. We have some fine examples of art-deco buildings dotted around the CBD which are part of the region's history. You can obtain self-guided maps with historical notes from the Tourist Information Centre for 5 routes. They range from approximately 1 to 3 hours in length. If you enjoy driving through the suburbs to view some lovely properties then you will find the suburb of Hermit Park has examples of renovated Old Queenslander style homes.

A popular attractions for visitors is ecotourism. There are many opportunities to experience what locals take for granted. The city's botanical garden sites feature tropical flora. One city park has been developed as a small section of rain forest. An untouched large section of remnant rain forest can be visited at Puluma township which is 1 hour north of Townsville at the summit of the Great Diving Range. It has a walking path of less than 30 minutes and the road up has numerous small waterfalls. The Billabong Sanctuary is a large fauna reserve on the southern outskirts of Townsville. Here you can observe popular Australian animals living in their natural habitat. You can cuddle a koala in safety but keep in mind there that some large salt water crocodiles reside there. Koalas living in their natural habitat can also be spotted on Magnetic Island and local wallabies live around the edges of the city dam. You'll see they may only be metres away as you traverse the dam wall. We have a feature waterfall cascading from hills above the Strand. But, a three hour drive north of Townsville will take you to the highest waterfall in the southern hemisphere. If you have time and feel energetic you can walk to the bottom of the falls. You'll experience extreme noise and lots of water spray. When visiting the Strand, go and visit the Tobruk Pool. It has been redeveloped and has heated swimming pools. Before you reach the entrance you can view a very small museum. On the surrounding walls are interpretive panels depicting the Australian Olympic Swim Team members of the sixties and seventies. The Tobruk Pool was their training base prior to the advent of heated pools. It's interesting reading. Lawrie Lawrence was once the pool swim coach.

There are some interesting driving day trips from Townsville. Paluma was mentioned earlier. Charter's Towers is a historical gold rush city about 90 minutes south west of Townsville. It once housed Australia's only stock exchange outside of a capital city. It has an operating drive-in movie theatre. Some historic buildings from the gold rush era still remain. Turning off the highway to Charters Towers is a sealed road to Ravenswood. Gold and Cobalt are still being extracted from the mining leases. The early history of the town is very much on display. For a day trip, the two pubs offer excellent pub meals. The town is very popular on weekends when one of the pubs play live music in the beer garden. Plus, there is Magnetic Island of course.

Townsville was a prominent WW2 garrison city and is now home to Australia's largest northern defence capability. The city has several WW2 museums and commemorative sites. You can walk to WW2 gun emplacements on Magnetic Island that overlook the Pacific Ocean. If you are observant you may see koalas asleep in the treetops on the side of the path. The air force base is an integrated part of Townsville airport and has an aero museum where several restored WW2 aircraft are on display.

We hope you found this description of our neighbourhood very interesting and it encourages you to visit.