By a Man in Search of Reef and Redemption
I landed in Townsville like a fever dream in cargo shorts sweaty, dazed, and wildly unprepared for the dry tropical punch this northern Queensland city throws at you the second you step off the plane. Townsville doesn’t whisper you in. It kicks open the door, throws a XXXX Gold at your head, and says, “Right, mate, let’s see what you’re made of.”
I crashed at Classique B&B on Cleveland Terrace an old colonial pile Townsville Bed and Breakfast with fretwork like lace and a wraparound veranda that groaned in the heat like it had war memories. My host, had eyes like she’d seen some things and a laugh that suggested they were hilarious. She fed me eggs and fruit and tales of cyclones past. There was a cat. I never learned its name, but it judged me deeply every morning over coffee.
I hit Castle Hill first, the city’s red rock monolith that looms over Townsville like a half drunk sentinel. I climbed it just after sunrise because locals told me if I did it later, I’d “boil from the inside like a prawn in a stubby holder.” The view from the top was pure outback theatre: reef to one side, dust to the other, and a smattering of city lights clinging to survival in between.
I walked The Strand Townsvilles coastal promenade where joggers, families, and sunburnt tourists collide like sweaty tectonic plates. I swam in the stinger net, which is basically a cage in the sea to stop box jellyfish from turning you into a sobbing statistic. Afterward, I wandered to Juliette’s Gelateria, where I made aggressive love to a scoop of mango sorbet under a palm tree while watching pelicans loiter like retired criminals.
Lunch was a greasy, glorious event at Longboard Bar & Grill, right on the beach. Fish tacos. Cold beer. An Irish backpacker named Ronan tried to sell me a secondhand surfboard and possibly his kidney. I declined, but only just.
Then came Reef HQ Aquarium a place equal parts marine wonderland and philosophical awakening. It’s the largest living coral reef aquarium in the world, which sounds like a line from a tourist brochure, but is also, against all odds, true. I stared at sharks like they owed me money. I made eye contact with a sea turtle and briefly reconsidered every poor life decision. They do that to you those turtles. Ancient. Judgemental. Probably Buddhist.
By nightfall I needed firewater and air con, so I stumbled into The Brewery on Flinders Street, where the beer is brewed onsite and the patrons are as eclectic as a David Lynch cast party. I drank something called a Ned’s Red and watched a man attempt karaoke with the intensity of a man facing execution. It was beautiful. It was tragic. It was everything Townsville is in liquid form.
The next day, hungover and spiritually cracked open, I boarded the ferry to Magnetic Island, which the locals just call “Maggie” like it’s a cousin they occasionally avoid. Koalas. Rock wallabies. Eucalyptus highs. Hired a topless car and tore around the island like a bogan Gatsby. Swam at Horseshoe Bay. Ate fish and chips that may have contained God. Watched the sun dip below granite boulders and knew, in my gut, that I had briefly touched transcendence.
Back at Classique B&B, I was asked if I’d “found what I was looking for.” I replied I wasn’t sure what that was, but I now had a sunburn that looked like Tasmania and a head full of reef dreams.
Townsville is not slick. It’s not curated. It’s a hot, wild, honest place. It smells of salt, dust, and the ghost of a thousand surf lessons. It’s part outback, part reef, part fever hallucination. And I’d go back in a heartbeat.
Just bring water. And a sense of humour.