Townsville has many of the old heritage buildings still in very good condition and, as I have mentioned before, the council have spent a lot of money and time revitalising the city centre. This is contrary to many towns that let the central areas slowly decay. Once the under cover shopping centres open in the suburbs, with all the multi-national chains and large car parks making shopping easy in air-conditioned comfort. So it was refreshing to see this lovely old town preserving its heritage.
Like many of the towns in Australia it was the boom years of the late 1800’s and the discovery of gold, that saw huge growth and the building of the very impressive looking hotels,banks and other commercial buildings. Townsville was doubly lucky because it had a safe port area. The old town grew around the port and the Ross River.
Because we are here for longer than we usually spend in one place, and we have to walk or use public transport, we have plenty of time to really get to know this town. Yesterday we took the local bus out to the suburbs. The suburbs are well spread out. Starting with the older, wooden, Queenslander style cottages of the early 1900’s, gradually changing to the more boxy, sterile looking brick and aluminium of the 60’s and 70’s, finally we pass the stucco and tile of the recent decade. It took an hour to get out to the latest Stockland shopping complex. What a characterless place it was. Identical to all other shopping complexes around Australia. All the same chain stores, selling all the same things.
As I have more time to play around with the photos I have tried to capture the atmosphere of Townsville in some montages of photos.
This first one is of some of the Heritage Buildings, and there are many more than I have used in this montage.
I saw a montage being used to great effect by Jo Bryant in her blog “Chronicles of Illusions” http://jobryantnz.wordpress.com/2012/09/24/100-steps-photo-challenge/ Click here to see a very good photo montage…
gypsy life 
The clock tower is great, I love them, strange but true!
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None of the clocks were working and each side had a different time showing…
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very very cool…and thank you for mentioning the one I did
🙂
they are fun to do aren’t they ??
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Time consuming, but satisfying. I’m using Photoshop, not quite as good as the affect you achieved, must look into Picassa when we get home. Played around again last night putting borders around, third attempt coming up….
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