My life in Townsville Queensland

It’s the little things that count!

For those considering immigration to Australia, I thought I would list the things that I loved (and still love!) about Oz when my husband and I and our two small children immigrated to Townsville, North Queensland in 1996. Some of the things may sound trivial but I make no apologies for that. It’s the little things that you do on a daily basis that impact upon your life the most. So here are the simple things that put a smile on my Aussie dial.

Getting my washing dry!

I come from the Medway Towns in Kent and when we left the UK in 1996 clothes dryers were not commonplace. I remember the hassle of trying to get washing dry when it was raining or cold. I would hang the clothes on radiators and watch the condensation stream down the windows. Townsville is a tropical savannah climate and, on average, experiences 320 days of sunshine each year. Getting your clothes dry? Not a worry, mate! Now I put my washing on the line and it dries in under an hour. Plus it has that lovely, fresh, outdoor smell! This may be a little thing but it makes me very happy!

Ideally you don’t want to dry your clothes in direct sunlight as the sun is very strong and it fades the colour, especially black clothes. Our first house was a traditional ‘Queenslander’ on stumps so there was a shady area under the house where the washing line was located. Alternatively place your washing line in a shady area of the garden. I now live in a lowset house so my washing line is in the sun for some of the day. Admittedly my towels do get a bit bone dry and scratchy but I just see that as an opportunity to exfoliate as I dry!

Swimming under the stars and in the sea!

A swim for us back in the UK involved getting into the car with all our gear, driving to the local swimming pool and coming home with a cold and a verruca. Here I just step out of my rear patio doors! We are lucky enough to have our own in-ground pool and when it’s dark (and the neighbours can’t see me) I slip into the pool ‘nudie rudie’ (as the Australians say) and swim on my back looking up at the stars. Bliss!

Back in the UK we would swim in the sea a couple of times a year if we were lucky and could summon up the courage to jump into the icy waters! Here we live just 10 mins from the beach so we can make a spontaneous decision to jump in the car and within 15 minutes we’re enjoying the therapeutic benefits of the ocean!

Wearing thongs (flip flaps), sandals or going barefoot a lot of the time is very liberating but does make your feet a bit callused and hobbit-like so I use the salty seawater and sand to soften the hard skin on my Aussiefied feet! Hey, it’s the little things remember? It’s like my very own tropical foot spa!

I absolutely love swimming in the sea. It’s mentally and physically therapeutic and you feel relaxed afterwards like you’ve had a little holiday…or a mini-break as Bridget Jones would say! During the stinger season (stinger = jellyfish) we wear stinger suits and swim in the stinger net due to killer jellyfish (but no where’s perfect, right?).

Entertaining

Entertaining is easy and enjoyable in the tropics for the simple reason that you can do everything outside! In the UK I used to dread hosting the local ‘mother and toddler’ group with six prams parked in the front room, toddlers jumping up and down on the sofa with their shoes on and a handful of babies projectile vomiting on the carpet. In Oz it can all happen outside!

Naturally, you have to make sure that the kids are protected from the sun but when my kids were little, as already mentioned above, we lived in a traditional ‘Queenslander’ house which had been raised so there was a large paved area underneath the house; perfect as a play space for the kids.

Skin cancer is a big problem in Queensland and it is advisable not to let your children play outside in the heat of the day but once it starts to cool down, pop the sunscreen on and let them play in the pool with their buddies while you and the other mothers cool your toes in the pool and drink tea. If you’re lucky enough to afford a house with a pool, I’d definitely recommend it. It’s perfect for entertaining kids and it also wears them out. Bliss!

Entertaining adults is just as simple as it can take place on the verandah, on the patio, under the house, in the garden or around the pool. Once the party is over the ants move in and clear up!

Parking

I can’t remember the last time I reversed park. I just don’t bother because there is always another parking spot close by, so why put myself through the stress? Obviously, this is due to living in a regional town with a population of only 185,000 but I’m not complaining!

When we left the UK in 1996, the roads where we lived were very busy and it was always difficult to park. I remember visiting my mother-in-law who lived in a street of terraced houses. Cars would be parked on either side of the road allowing just one car to pass at any time, so you had to play, ‘Who’s going to go first’ with the other driver coming in the opposite direction. We would also invariably have to park way down the street from her house due to lack of parking spots which was a pain when you were carrying shopping. Townsvillians (as they are known) can’t imagine not being able to park outside their own homes and mostly they don’t have to as they have generous driveways and/or garages on their premises.

When I first got to Australia I couldn’t believe the width of some of the streets! There is often a huge swathe of space on either side of the road for parking. I found that I could literally pull up outside the shop I wanted to visit. This was a completely new and strange phenomenon for me! I was used to driving round and round the block trying to find a park whilst the kids screamed in the back of the car. In Townsville we say that you can just about get anywhere in ten minutes. It’s probably not strictly true but the lack of traffic jams and easier parking do make driving a lot less stressful than the UK.

My husband’s work commute was an hour each way in the UK, so two hours of his day would be spent in the car. Now he gets to work within 15 minutes. This is a huge plus for quality of life!

And finally…

Mangoes!

 I love mangoes! Our traditional Queenslander house had a huge garden of approximately ¼ acre and we were lucky enough to have two large mango trees. Unfortunately the bats like mangoes too but we managed to salvage enough for ourselves. I had never tasted mango before arriving in Australia and I couldn’t believe how delicious they were! Even now, I never buy mangoes. I wait for someone with a tree to give me some! If the tropics had a taste, it would be mango! They are extremely messy to eat but that just adds to the fun!  I used to feed my kids mango nudie rudie (them not me!) and then pop them in the shower.

I also got to experience lychees for the first time which are my other favourite fruit. A tropical Christmas always includes mangoes and lychees! 

As I said in my opening paragraph, it’s the small things that make you smile and improve your day-to-day quality of life that count. Whether it’s quick drying washing, heavenly mangoes or ‘nudie rudie’ swimming! As Julie Andrews sang, so sweetly, ‘These are a few of my favourite things’ but I have heaps more!