I’ve seen a terrible lack of Australian locales to enter the realm of awful travel destinations, especially the city of Townsville in the state of Queensland. It’s reputation on a national scale is usually attributed to the tag of “KKK Capital Of Australia” by Aboriginal activist Sam Watson, but when the city’s founder Robert Towns had the auspicous profession of being a “blackbirder” (aka. slave trader); things ain’t off to a good start.

So what makes Townsville so awful besides the racism? Maybe it’s the desolate city mall which is all but abandoned and home to many vagrants who have scant disregard for verbally abusing anyone who starys near their path.
Or perhaps the city’s nightclub precinct is another welcome place to have obscenities thrown at you by drunken strangers on a weekend. The premier establishment “The Cri” along the strip is one of those humble ‘will-I-make-it-out-alive?’ kinda places with rednecks galore.
I also neglected to mentioned the crappy street architecture that adorns the nightclub strip. Its essentially garbage and scrap metal piled together in a tall triangle shape. I tend to resent hearing people saying; “That’s not art!” at just about anything. But I sometimes feel it’s valid in the aforementioned case of triangle trash to say they gotta point.

Townsville is also a city with an army barracks, air force base, and large nickel refinery meaning macho bravado (even amongst members of the female population) is the order of the day. So if a binge drinking, V8 Supercar loving, Big Mac eating culture is the primeval way of life you seek, you’ve just found Heaven.