Today we are camped in Townsville in a really big caravan park, part of “The Big 4” franchise group. It seems OK so far. I meet nice people in caravan parks, always friendly and ready to have a chat.
There was Sean yesterday who is driving an older Dodge Ram. They have a Cummins 6 cylinder motor in them which apparently has a tendency to inconveniently drop the glow plug into the cylinder, thus destroying the pot and requiring an engine rebuild. He knows about this because it happened to him.
Then there was Annabelle. She was an older lady and spent a long time telling me about her two dogs who died of old age within months of each other. It was very devastating for her but she seems to have recovered as she was off to “have a tipple” with another friend in the park.
Then there was Daryl and his Mrs who were very enthusiastic about Anna’s endeavours, so much so that they gave us a nice bottle of red. People are kind.
Townsville seems so far to be a pretty nice town. It has a big craggy hill, or mini-mountain behind it, a lot of water, a large port and is very established. They call it the capital city of FNQ. It’s been around for a long time, has industry, infrastructure, parks and gardens, theatres, galleries and a big sports ground, It’s got the lot, including320 days of sunshine a year! What’s not to like.
During WW2 my father, a young Captain in the Australian Army, was stationed here while his Battalion was assigned to help load and unload ships. I think they did this for about 9 months before eventually being shipped to New Guinea and then the Solomons where they fought the Japanese hand to hand. Some men were so scarred by the whole thing that they hated the Japanese for the rest of their lives and at the same time found their only comfort in the presence of old comrades at the RSL. My father was not like this at all. He had plenty of war stories which were of great interest to me as a boy but he went to Japan a few times with my mother in the 60’s and was impressed with their culture and industry.
Tomorrow is another day off while Anna has a board call. It will also help us to re-set our days off to be on a weekday rather than a Sunday.
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