The not-so-sweet colonial history of sugar; The Strand, Townsville; topped-up long macs; ferry to Magnetic Island; Scallywags, pirates and other islanders; A Touch of Salt review; underbelly musings
Having been warned to expect delays along the 273km stretch of road between Airlie Beach and Townsville, we experienced very little; that it was a Sunday might have helped.
I rather enjoyed the drive through endless sugar cane plantations. Ninety-five percent of Aussie sugar is grown in Queensland; and just 5 percent in New South Wales. More than 80 percent is exported as raw bulk sugar, apparently leaving plenty for the production of rum and Cherry Ripe chocolate bars.
Sugarcane agriculture dates back to 1864, as old as Townsville itself. Interestingly, KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa established its own sugarcane plantations in the same decade, importing Indian indentured labour to do the harvesting.
Here in Oz, a “cheap and compliant workforce” of cane-cutters included “convicts, ticket holders, emancipists and indentured workers”. (For more, see here.) When transportation ended, some 62,500 indentured islanders were imported from Melanesia between 1864 and 1902 – and then most of them were deported by 1906. (Unlike South Africa, where the vast majority stayed.)
Then came Italian and other European migrants; many of today’s sugar growers are their descendants. Thanks to the development of mechanical cane harvesters, today Australia Mills produces 3.5m tonnes of raw sugar annually. The cane season here is from June to November.
A Town like Townsville
One of our fellow-cruisers on the ZigZag Whitsunday cruise lives in Townsville, and had been rather deprecatory about her hometown, the capital of tropical North Queensland. Magnetic Island was the best thing about the place, she said.
So I wasn’t expecting much, and was surprised by how much the town captured my imagination.
I’d also chosen a good spot to stay: Waters Edge The Strand. It’s in the main tourist strip of hotels, cafés and more on Townsville’s 2.2km-long esplanade, generally known as The Strand. (Studio room 52m2, sea view, $340 for 2 nights.)
While Roy downed extra-hot flat whites (to his utter disgust, QLD baristas have never heard of a topped-up long mac*), stroked his soft, lovely beard and generally enhanced the café culture at Juliette’s, I strolled off to acquaint myself with The Strand.
(*Note: To be fair, neither had Roy before we came to WA.)
The Strand
This genteel esplanade development dates back to the 1860s; Townsville itself was established in 1864. What was The Strand Park was renamed ANZAC Memorial Park in 1934.
Seaview Hotel was undergoing renovation. Built in 1929, it served as an Australian Army Officers’ mess during World War II. (It has a lovely location and a nice old façade, but the menu did not appeal.)
The impressively colonnaded former Queens Hotel, below (built from 1902 to 1920 of English bond brickwork with rendered detailing), replaced a circa 1872 hotel of the same name. Heritage-listed in 1992, my sources inform me that it’s now known as the Telecasters North Queensland Building – though I saw no sign saying so.
I’m rather pleased with these pano shots of Townsville architecture – though I’m afraid the tour guide who showed me how to do it may have created a monster.
The Tobruk Memorial Baths were completed in 1950 – and named in honour of Aussie servicemen who died in the Siege of Tobruk. (Cairns has its own, much bigger and fancier Tobruk Memorial Baths).
Having stuffed ourselves with the enormous gelatos served up at Juliette’s – though we’d ordered only one modest scoop, honestly – a light salad in our apartment was plenty. And after the previous night’s over-indulgence at Coral Sea Resort’s Rocks, not even a glass of wine.
Ferry to Magnetic Island
It was good old Captain James Cook who sailed past this coast in in 1770 and named the island “Magnetical Island”, believing – wrongly, they say – that this land mass had interfered with his compass.
$39 gets you a return on the passenger ferry, plus all-day access to Sunbus, the only public bus service. We might have taken a bus tour instead, but the tourbus company seemed not to operate on a Monday.
It was a comfortable 25-minute, 8km crossing from Breakwater Ferry Terminal across the millpond to Nelly Beach Ferry Terminal. Once there, everyone else piled on the waiting buses to either Horsheshoe Beach in the north or Picnic Bay in the south.
Like rebels without a clue, we (mainly Roy, actually) baulked at lining up to board a bus and decided to check out Nelly Bay first.
My unusual craving for breakfast was totally satisfied at Scallywags. This pirate-themed café in Nelly Bay is suitably helmed by a dreadlocked dame and a buccaneering sort of fellow showing rather a lot of skin.
From not much more than a caravan, from which has sprouted some paving, roughly ship-shaped wooden rails and an extravaganza of sailcloth, they eventually served up my egg-sellent vego breakfast (beans, hash browns, spinach and eggs; $15) and Roy’s smashed avo on toast, eggs and smoked salmon; $20). He was slightly bitter about the rocket-to-avo ratio, but soon got over it.
Faced with another half-hour wait for the next bus service, we instead took an $18 taxi to Horseshoe Bay. Our driver is one of the island’s nearly 3,000 residents. Originally from Melbourne, she was travelling the country when she arrived in Magnetic Island 40 years ago – and basically never left.
“It’s called Magnetic Island because you always come back*,” she said. (Possibly not the first time she’d trotted that one out.)
Passing Alma Beach, she said it had been voted Oz’s second-best beach. Possibly true, though unlikely – this island doesn’t produce the kind of powder-white sand that’s essential to best-beach-worthiness. It’s more accurately described as “golden” – or even light brown.
It was an hour till the next bus – in fact, the same bus with the same driver – departed Horseshoe Bay; so that’s how long we spent there. I communed with the molluscs on the wide expanse of low-tide beach, while Roy added to the ambience of the several cafés and seafood restos (see how my Oz-speak is coming on?) along the small tourist strip.
Picnic Beach is marginally prettier, but with just one F&B possibility: Picnic Beach Hotel. Half-an-hour there was quite enough; and the bus got us back to Nelly Bay in time for the 3pm return ferry.
*Two points to be made:
- Firstly, it’s Maggie. No self-respecting Aussie would ever call Magnetic Island by its full name.
- And secondly, much as it was a must-see, we’re unlikely to return to Maggie. You could easily spend a week or more hiking the island’s adventure trails, exploring its many secluded bays, feeding wallabies, cuddling koalas and so on; and so could I – but we could not. If you know Roy, you’ll know that a nature walk is one my husband’s least favourite activities.
Review: A Touch of Salt
Dinner at A Touch of Salt, located centrally and with a view of Ross Creek, is one of Townsville’s top three restaurants according to Tripadvisor, and it was hard to fault.
We shared the delicious baked Hervey Bay scallops, bacon, jalapeño jam and lemon crumb ($21) to start. And it turned out to be a good thing there were only four of them, because our main courses were both generous and outstanding – probably the best dishes we’ve had on this entire trip. Mine was the coffee-roasted beef short rib, hasselback potatoes, carrots, burnt honey and black tahini; Roy had the slow-cooked lamb scotch fillet, sweet potato dahl, fried peas, shallots, mint paneer and tendrils ($38 each). I’d love to go back and try the other equally scrumptious-looking options. (Have a look at them here.)
Postscript 1
One last thought about Townsville: I enjoyed the long and lovely Esplanade/Strand and the general feeling of the place. Yet there were hints of a less-than-pleasant underbelly. First came a strange confrontation when the driver of a big SUV deliberately and repeatedly cut us off on the main drag, Flinder Street, as though looking for a fight. We had no idea what we’d done to upset him or her: I thought it was a large Indian woman, but Roy identified our aggressor as a male islander sporting a topknot.
Later, in the restaurant, a gaggle of what looked like druggie street-children in hoodies tried to enter the restaurant, banging violently against the glass doors and clearly causing alarm to the staff who quickly locked the doors.
These incidents raised questions in us – but there was no one to decently ask them of. Luckily, there’s always duckduckgo, where a quick search found this illuminating article. Here’s another, dealing with the history of Islanders and the sugar cane industry.
Postscript 2
To end on a more serene note, I’ll leave you with these views of a venerable banyan tree and Townsville’s gracious old train station.
Next up? Cairns, and finally our amazing Spirit of Queensland train journey back to Brisbane.
