Townsville Dry Dry Tropics

One of the biggest contrasts that I get to experience in travelling between the southeast corner of Queensland to the northern portion of the state is the dramatic difference in vegetation communities.

Townsville (where my family live) is the northern most piece of Brigalow Belt and is often a very very dry part of northeastern Queensland....when I arrived in Australia in 1989 I was told that the city was at the end of a 7yr drought, and coming from Sub Saharan Africa, it certainly looked like a very familar landscape to me.

Now this is not to say that the region has not had rain, and flood rains at times in the intervening years, but the current dry season is particularly pronounced.

Looking north from Castle Hill

Grafton Tree Town

There is is little doubt in my mind that the early settlers and founders of many of the towns and cities across Australia had a clear vision of how they wanted their new home to look, what they wanted it to grow into.

Of all the towns I have visited Grafton is definitely amongst the most beautiful.

Many people know Grafton a the place of the annual Jacaranda festival, and it does have some of the most magnificent Jacaranda Avenues around, however there is a great deal more to Grafton than just an explosion of purple shades in late October and early November.