14 July 2011 - Black River Stadium, Queensland

Still here beside the rodeo ring enjoying fine weather on this, Bastille Day. Why on earth would I remark on such a foreign holiday, you may ask! Because it is all part and parcel of the Tour de France that seems to consume so much of our lives at the moment. I do miss the replays of whole stages as we were able to watch last year on Sky Television; now I have to be satisfied with fifteen minutes highlights at 7.30 am and another half an hour at 6 pm, while Chris makes do with that and a couple of hours at night after 10 pm. Such are the handicaps of being retired and on the road!

The camp was shrouded in fog this morning when we woke, but not quite as cold as the previous day. Apparently it was foggy yesterday, but it had burned off before I looked out. Black clouds have lurked around, coming to nothing for now but a warning for the days to come.

A bulldozer started work at seven at the edge of camp, making sure we were all awake at a respectable hour. Later inquiries revealed that the row of mango trees has been torn out; they were host to fruit bats and right now fruit bats are some of the most vilified creatures in Australia. After several equine deaths and one human, all from the Hendra virus, and the more recent outbreak just north of us west of Cairns, everyone is on the alert. The Hendra virus is carried by the bats, which are immune to any ill effect. They defecate on the grass which the horses eat; passing the virus through their bodily fluids. As the sick horses are attended to by the vets, nurses and other handlers, they too are affected through the bodily fluids of the horses.

The fact that the camp owners are horsy folk and the next rodeo is to be held here on 20 August are enough to ring alarm bells as regards this scare. I fear that fruit bats country wide will be bait for hunters and will soon join the endangered species list. (I actually love the little critters.)

We were late setting off out this morning, spending a long time chatting with our neighbours, Sandra and Peter, from Brisbane. This is not their first stay here, in fact they have been here at least twice before and are again appreciating the peace and quiet and in theory, warmer weather than they would at home. When I mentioned to them that the forecast suggested a couple of days of showery weather, they scoffed and said that it just did not rain here.

Obviously it does because there are flood indicators on many of the roads we travel, and Townsville certainly is vulnerable to cyclones. Yasi hit the coast further north in early February this year, but the town did not go unscathed. Trees in the parks still bear the scars of fallen branches and there are patches of foreshore undergoing redevelopment where great mountains of sand were washed ashore. There is still evidence of roofs having been damaged and some yet to be repaired. It is all credit to the council that the clean up has been undertaken with such efficiency and expertise. Perhaps that comes of it being a fairly frequent occurrence; suffering cyclones, that is.

Little to see in the Town Common National Park

We have a wish list of Townsville attractions and are ticking them off as we go. The first for today was the Town Common National Park which is hailed as a birdwatcher’s paradise. The land lies on the north western side of Cleveland Bay, sheltering Townsville; Magnetic Island shelters the northern aspect and Cape Cleveland the eastern. Open woodland, grassland, swamps and vine thickets provide a habitat for as many as 280 bird species. The map in the promotional booklet shows a variety of walks, both short and long. I had earmarked the 1.9 kilometre Forest Walk as being suitable for a pre-lunch workout, however as we bumped and bounced over the pitted potholed gravel road, spied the beginning of the chosen walk overgrown within a metre of leaving the road and saw the ‘Achtung! – Recent crocodile sightings!’ sign, we decided that this was not the nice place we were expecting and turned around and left without further scrutiny.

Instead we headed back toward town and parked on the foreshore at Rowes Bay and ate our picnic lunch in the company of an ibis, a butcher bird and a flock of seagulls.

Consulting the literature we had on hand, we decided that we would proceed to the Gallery of Fine Arts. We parked along the Strand and found the gallery on foot; it was in fact the Townsville Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Cultural Centre which includes an art gallery along with a performance stage. One gallery was hosting an exhibition of aboriginal people taking part in drug and alcohol rehabilitation. One could liken this to a local art society exhibition; some quite good and some not so. A second gallery had some excellent works by aboriginal artists who have work also being shown in many other parts of the world.

The Centre also has a section dedicated to the history and culture of aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. Much of the information had been gleaned from other centres visited along the way, but was portrayed here with a tone that conveyed the bitterness and hurt of so much that has gone on before.

We spent a little time speaking with the curator, or at least the one for the day, a very dark women who has aboriginal, Chinese, Torres Strait Island and English heritage. It seems that we all (or at least she and I) are a mongrel mix of cultures, with a medley of historical ups and downs. My mongrel blood is just a little less obvious, and the injustices to my ancestors less recent than those to hers.

While this Gallery of Fine Arts had not been as we expected, we certainly enjoyed the

experience.

Time still allowed us to squeeze in another art gallery, this time the Perc Tucker Regional Gallery. Alas, as we have encountered too often before, most of the gallery was closed with workers preparing for a new exhibition. There was a small room on the bottom floor full of ceramic treasures, some of which were just delightfully outrageous. Upstairs a touring exhibition titled “In the Japanese Manner 1900 - 1940”, a collection of lino and wood cuts, featured work by Margaret Preston who brought the concept back from Paris in 1912, and many others who followed her. So much of it took me back to the wonderful books we had as children that had been my mother’s, or rather her older sister’s, which were full of wonderful “flat” pictures of pixies and elves. The exhibition did not so much feature these elfin creatures but reminded me of the illustrations that littered these publications. Chris was less enamoured with the work, but then we do so often have differing opinions of art works. Thank goodness we are not entirely alike; we are our own people!

Since we were so close to the central post office, we popped along to check whether the elusive post had arrived. Too much make believe; the exercise was of course futile.

After such a day, full of disappointments and surprises, further discoveries and pleasures, we returned home. I set up the computer outside in the remains of the sun and we were in time to kiss Bella goodnight, and to catch up with her parents and later her uncle, all on Skype.