So, farewell then, Townsville ...

Ah, Townsville. We've learned how to memorialise a military campaign, how to avoid irukandji, why green butts are sometimes good butts, the rewards of Rooball, the delights of roosting avifauna, and the answers to some pretty important questions.

It remains only to have a farewell drink at The Criterion (or The Cri, as it is called, we Australians being polysyllabically challenged) home of the longest running wet t'shirt competition in the Southern Hemisphere.




Here's a thing. When I was young and firm, I would never in a million years have entered. Now I am older, wiser & need the money, I would enter without a second thought, were it not that the inexorable migration south of the marvelous mammeries is well under way. Oh yes, they look fine with the application of clever and increasingly expensive foundation garments. But unfettered in the nude, or modestly shielded by wet stretch cotton, their once-famous generosity now brings to mind two ponderous dugongs wallowing in warm water.

So we say, farewell Townsville. We'll be back one day. The next post will come from Tasmania, home of the Devil, the Tiger and the original Tetherd Cow.