Boring name, boring town

So, Townsville. What a strange little place. Our Lonely Planet said the city has a population of 150,000, but I'll be damned if I knew where they were. The place was deserted. We parked on the edge of town and walked in, the only person we passed was a tramp throwing up in a doorway of an abandoned shopfront, proceeding to walk past us with bits of vomit dangling from his beard. He looked a little like Santa Claus would if the toy business dried up, and he was wearing a t-shirt that said 'Welcome To Townsville'. He wasn't really, I made that bit up, but he might as well have been. We reached the river that runs through the city and I parted from the girls because I wanted to check out the maritime museum. I strode in the baking sun for about 600 meters past lovely little restaurants with tables outside. Palm trees lined the street and there wasn't a soul to be seen. It reminded me a little of Barcelona and the nocturnal inhabitants there, but it was about 10am and I expected it to be busier. The museum itself was nice enough. It also incorporates a model building club so many of the displays were built by amateurs, and they looked it. Still, I applauded the effort and spent a happy hour there before heading into town to meet up with the girls. When I found them they told me the only people they'd seen had been vagrants. Every bench on the main street had one, apparently. The only one I'd seen had been Santa, so I shrugged and we pressed on. We went to the Museum of Tropical Queensland which was pretty good, I have to say. Large, air-conditioned, informative, clean, and above all devoid of other people. The gift shop staff outnumbered the patrons two to one. We had lunch on a little terrace overlooking the main road and the marina, and all we could here was the sound of silence. There wasn't a car on the roads. It was very eerie, to say the least.

After the museum we headed back up town and did a little shopping. I was looking for a new t-shirt but the only ones I could find had those inane slogans on them, things like a picture of a cockerel and the words 'My Cock'll Do'. You see them in souvenir shops everywhere and they always have big stacks of them, presumably because only an idiot would wear them. Hot, tired and bored, we headed for the cinema. We saw Disturbia which is dumb but fun. Go and see it and count the number of times you can see the boom mic. It's really quite astonishing, particularly at the beginning of the film. It's based on Hitchcock's Rear Window, which I hadn't seen, so to me it was just based on the episode of The Simpsons where Bart breaks his leg. Still, it was a pretty enjoyable film. Afterwards the girls went to see the new Mr. Bean movie, which I couldn't face without a few beers first, so I passed. I found an internet place that was still open and got chatting to a guy there about Townsville in general. I asked him about the vagrants and he shrugged and said that it was just one of those things. I shouldn't have bothered asking him though, he was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of a cockerel and the words 'My Cock'll Do'.

My need for beer was becoming stronger so I went to the Great Northern Hotel where I noticed that my bottles of beer commemorated Australia Day 2007, something I hadn't seen on beer bottles since arriving here. That's because Australia Day was in January. Clearly, this wasn't the busiest of places. After about twenty minutes the bar staff outnumbered the customers two to one - there were two of them and one of me - and this was at 8pm! I asked the barman why it was so quiet and he shrugged and said "Just a Wednesday thing I guess. Should be good on Friday if you're going to be around, we've got a guy coming down who does some songs. Gets pretty packed. You should check it out if you're in town".
I feigned disappointment. "Och, we're heading north tomorrow" I said, and he looked pretty disappointed.

We spent the night back at the truck stop and headed back into town this morning to do some little jobs, and it's alot busier today. Must be a Wednesday thing after all. It's a nice place, vomiting vagrants aside, there's plenty to do and see but after a day it could get kind of boring. Oh, and better t-shirt shops wouldn't go amiss.