The main economic driver for Townsville City is mining. Ore exports are primarily nickle and zinc — just what you need if you want to manufacture lithium ion batteries. Townsville is a nice town with a wonderfully compact CBT (Central Business District). They apparently have a very active night life. The large number of eateries and pubs doesn’t begin to indicate how wild it must be. Townsville has public rest and recovery rooms available Friday and Saturday nights (and the following mornings). One can go to a room, lock themselves in, and sleep it off. If that doesn’t indicate party town, I don’t know what does.

We decided to explore the city on our own. We spent most of our time at the Museum of Tropical Queensland. Their biggest display was about the mutiny on the Bounty. The shortened version of the short story is that after the mutiny was known, England sent the USS Pandora to find the mutineers and bring them back to justice. The Pandora found 14 men. They didn’t have a large enough brig, so they built a prison box on the stern of the ship and put the men in (wait for it) Pandora’s box. They have an exquisite model of the Pandora. I couldn’t get a decent shot, but even a bad picture is worth a lot of words. If you look closely, you can see Pandora’s box. It has a round hole for ventilation.

The museum had thousands of beautiful stuffed animals, birds, and fake plants to represent wildlife of the area. Queensland includes a tropical forest, which greatly increases the diversity of the wildlife. The highlighted animal was a common wombat named Tonka that became a celebrity, much like the panda bears at the national zoo. It also caught my eye because Danita loves Tonka trucks. The exhibits were beautifully designed and exquisitely created.

On the way back to the ship, we passed the luxury boat harbor. You can clearly see how the sun is pouring heat into the atmosphere, building up an afternoon rain. One thing I have learned. 30 degrees centigrade is hot, hot, hot. No conversion or math is required.