Townsville, Australia

This northern coast of Queensland is quite mountainous. Offshore, the islands are not always the flat coral atolls of the Great Barrier Reef which I expected, but frequently are merely the projecting tops of mountains — their sides being quite precipitous. The main foliage seems to be pines.

About 2 in the afternoon we slid into Townsville, only to pull out again about two hours later, without any of us getting ashore, to our chagrin.

Would have liked to have stayed in Townsville awhile, it looks very interesting. The regular population is about 45,000, but it is a popular winter resort and has some very beautiful hotels. The sun was blazingly bright and reflected from the hundreds of flat white metal roofs of the houses. There was a very fine beach extending along the front of the town. The harbor was artificial and was attended by some very antique steam engines. The backdrops were some rather high mountains of granite, and covered with pine and scrub.