Townsville
Queensland
Woodstock Cattle Station is somewhat isolated. It is two hundred kilometers into the bush from the nearest town and a half hour drive to the neighbours. The reason it is so far from anything is that it is 154,300 hectares in size, which is substantially more than the 121,000 hectares of arable land in all of Iceland. It is a temporary home to 7,500 cattle and more of a permanent home to the Lord family, a family of four, that runs it, along with upwards of fifteen employees at the height of mustering season.
They've been in the news lately. They have many problems due to their extreme isolation. One, of course, is mental health. Being hours away from the nearest settlement means the loneliness can be palpable. Mr. Lord considers social media to be crucial to his staff's wellbeing, and Ms. Lord teaches yoga classes online. But of course the internet is spotty at best and everyone has to be shooed offline when it's yoga time.
Electricity is another problem. The station has been using a diesel generator but the cost of running such a thing is enormous. They have recently installed a 57.5 kw solar array with a 67 kwh battery bank to supplement diesel. This will certainly help, but North Queensland can be rainy. There are typically 98 days that you might consider sunny here in a year.
A particular problem with two young children is how you school them so far beyond the black stump, in the middle of woop-woop. Fortunately Australia has "the School of the Air" which was started in Alice Springs in 1951. Then all that was available was HF radio. Since 1951 it has spread all over, and is now done over the internet.
In spite of the problems, a couple of generations of Lords have been running things here and at five other (relatively) nearby stations since 1984, but of course they haven't always owned the land. Ignoring the claims of the local indigenous people, as so many do, the Woodstock Station was originally owned by Sydney businessman Robert Towns. Robert was something of an investor and not so much a cattleman, so he stayed in Sydney and let his man, John Melton Black, run things in his stead. This was the early 1860s and the Woodstock Station was even more isolated then than it is today. The only anchorage for ships, for instance, was on the Burdekin River and was prone to seasonal flooding. Not what you want when you're starting up a large cattle concern.
So John sent out his man, Andrew Ball, along with 8 native police troopers, to look for a suitable site for a port as close to the station as was feasible. In April of 1864 they reached Ross Creek and established camp. Of course there was already a camp there belonging to someone else, but that was easily disbanded and the residents chased into the water where there was some sport involving insults and shots being aimed at the "boys" in the water by the "boys" of the native police. One aboriginal man was shot dead when he was apparently mistaken for an alligator. The joke was totally on the police, though: there are no alligators in Australia. Anyway, after this bit of fun everyone went on to disband a totally unrelated indigenous camp and take all the women, who were shared out amongst the native police by rank order, as befits gentlemen.
So the location of a suitable port had been established. Work began quickly, and the settlement that sprang up around the port was named Townsville, in honour of Robert Towns. Nowadays, Townsville is likely to be the last bit of Australia that cows bound for Vietnam will ever see. Fifty years ago the same could have been said for many soldiers, who, mostly, God help them, were only nineteen.
Townsville it is, then.
The Cairns area grows a lot of bananas, sugarcane and avocadoes. They're also big on free trade for agricultural products.
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Time to close the windows. The weather here is variable it seems.
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And here we are in Townsville City. It wasn't always a city of course, gaining that designation in 1902 alongside Brisbane. As with all cities, it had to go through the early steps of being Townsville Roadhouse, Townsville Homestead, Townsville Hamlet, Townsville Village, Townsville Locality, Townsville Township, Townsville Town, Townsville District and Townsville County before arriving at its current Townsville City. Plans for the future include Townsville Metropolis, Townsville Conurbation and Townsville Megalopolis. Townsville Ecumenopolis is not off the table, but considered by many to be a step away from the small-town vibe the city currently enjoys.
So we're pretty much off Cape York now, but still have a long ways to go in Queensland. This is a big place. See you tomorrow.
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