Goin' Feral One Day At A Time: Townsville Street Art Walk

It is not just the street art that we enjoyed on our walk.

Townsville pretty well aways delivers a memorable stay in my (somewhat limited experience) and on this visit it was living up to that tradition. We'd just come down from three days of solid rain up at Mission Beach to arrive here and find pretty much blue sky and sunshine. Now after being away from home for a fair while we had a bit of mundane stuff to get through today, getting the ute serviced and voting being the highest priorities. In between all the running around town Sam and I thought that we'd check out the self guided Townsville Street Walk.

We started this little stroll at the Townsville Art Gallery - the Perc Tucker Gallery.

I'm guessing that most people would think that I'd be happier in that building rather than an art gallery.

We decided to start this walk at the Perc Tucker Regional Gallery which was hosting the Percival Art Prize exhibition. This is only a very small gallery, however it was nice to step inside and enjoy the peaceful ambiance and great art (and the air conditioner) after hustling around town all morning. Once we left the gallery we climbed a few metres up Denham Street to Melton Terrace to check out the first of the street art pieces.

Wulgurukaba and Bindal by Agnate.

The Barrier by Tellas.

Ephemeral Volume by Roberto Ciredz.

Turtle mounts Croc by ROA... err, actually it's untitled but this was the first thing that came into my mind!

One thing I've noticed about these street art walks is that they are now sometimes very sanitised, the political and ethical issues that use to hit you in the face with some of the street art are now way more subtle and in a lot of cases non existent. This walk falls into that category I think, while you can discern some messaging from the art I think the better way to think of things is that you are doing a mural walk. After weaving our way through the Townsville CBD checking out numerous car park walls while trying to stay clear of the road rage. After walking a few small alleyways we crossed the Ross Creek on the pedestrian bridge (an old railway bridge by the look of it) and left the CBD.

The Smizler by Lee Harnden.

Brolga Song and Dance by Nicky Bidju Pryor.

Castle Hill is often visible towering over the CBD on this walk.

Sound & Movement Personified by Clare Foxton.

Cat & Mouse by 815K1.

Under the Sea by Hafleg.

The old water tank on the side of Castle Hill isn't actually part of the official art trail - it actually looks more organic if you ask me.

Concord by James Giddy.

There is plenty of typical Queensland architecture on show in Townsville.

Girroogul and the Soap Tree by Garth Jankovic & Nicky Bidju Pryor.

We now walked through the Palmer Street Precinct - I did know that Clive Palmer had history with his nickel paint in Townsville however I didn't realise that he had a precinct named after him? Maybe it's for all his workers that he stiffed who are living on the street? (treat all this as a Feral fact!). Whatever and whoever the Palmer Street Precinct is named after it looks like it's the flash area of town, there are a lot of trendy shops, cafés and pubs along here - the thing is that at the moment the place (like the whole CBD) is a bit of a ghost town, every second shop was closed and boarded up and you could fire a gun along the footpath and not hit anyone. After walking past the Maritime Museum we checked out some art on the opposite side of Ross Creek before heading back to the CBD.

Mother Earth by Leans.

This is an untitled piece by Beastman.

Transmission by All Hours.

Collective by James Giddy.

Perpetual Motion by Baby Guerrilla.

Goanna by ROA.

Converge by Beastman.

We crossed over the Ross River on the old railway bridge to the Palmer Precinct.

The Ross Creek in Townsville. Notice the flash stadium in the background - yep, once we crossed over the Barnaby Line on our journey north we noticed a big increase in publicly funded ~~pork barrelling~~, err... facilities. Want a new dam? Just call 1800 rorts are us and we'll get you onto our special colour coded tax payer funded whiteboard!

After retracing our steps through the Palmer Street Precinct we crossed over the Ross Creek again, this time on the George Roberts Bridge before dropping into the small Denham Lane. The art in Denham Lane was the type of art that I like, a little grittier and a little more 'real' than most of the stuff that had come before. Unfortunately having found what I was looking for our art trail finished, so after saving my Alltrails map Sam and headed back to The Strand to find somewhere to grab a drink.

Coratherium by Wasnan.

Toghostums by Bosnian.

Heading back towards the river through the Palmer Precinct - Townsville, like a lot of North Queensland looked like it had been and still was badly effected by the Covid Lockdowns down south.

Silence and Whisperings by Mantra.

There's that big lump of rock again! Castle Hill in Townsville.

We crossed back over the Ross Creek on the George Roberts Bridge.

This art on Denham Lane is more my cup of tea.

Denham Lane art.

The Dirt.

According to my AllTrails App we walked around 4.3 kilometres and climbed about 48 metres (I didn't have my GPS with me today, so no GPX file). We picked up the City of Townsville brochure and map for this walk from our hotel before setting off, the brochure should be available around town and I think it's accessible online (although the interactive QR codes along the walk didn't work today). This is an easy walk all along footpaths (or in carparks) and with some judicious criss crossing of roads we managed to spend a fair bit of it walking in the shade (always a bonus in the tropics). Apart from the map on the brochure I used my Alltrails App on this walk although Google Maps would get most people through I think.

Relevant Posts.

The Strand Walk, Townsville, 2022.

Magnetic Island Bays Walk, 2022.