Townsville

When I booked my ticket to Townsville the travel agent said "Why do you want to go there, its a shit hole?" From that response I should have worked out it was probably wasn't the best place to go. When I got there I did however disagree with her, it wasn't a shit hole at all, it was just very very dull.

I came here hoping to possibly find some work. Townsville is a bit of strange place to come and for that reason I thought it may mean they opportunity to get work would be a bit greater here.

I had come to Townsville to hopefully just find a few days casual work be it fruit picking, dog washing or promotion while I waited to see what my fate was with a possible job back in the UK. My first attempts at looking for work involved accidentally phoning an agency to buy into a pyramid scheme and then also accidentally going into a job agency for disabled people. I thought about maybe walking out and then maybe walking in with a limp but I decided that probably wasn't a good idea. I then rang a few agencies who said there was literally nothing and then contacted a few fruit picking firms seeing what they had going, they also had nothing! I had been in Townsville less than 24 hours and was already starting to think it was a bad idea.

I popped into a travel agent and looked into prices for flights back to Melbourne where I hoped there would be some definite work. However they were all really expensive unless I waited a month or so and that was not happening. I made the travel agent laugh when she ashed me how long I had been in Townsville for, literally a few hours I said. "Want to get away already!!" She said. hahaa

Townsville was OK, a strange place with not much going on. I guess there was an element of the "real" Australia here, a place which is very Australian rather than the more cosmopolitan Sydney and Melbourne. There were also more aboriginals here than anywhere else I have seen so far in Australia. I spent almost exactly 24 hour here before I embarked an an epic 2600km road trip back down to Melbourne in search of possible work.

So goodbye Townsville, I don't think I will ever be coming back.