AFTER living in a nice apartment on Castle Hill for the first month or so following our travels, we got ourselves a place of our own. It is a two-bed apartment in a new complex called Tropical Gardens, and is a series of three-storey blocks around car parks and a big pool.
We are on the ground floor, which means we have a small bit of garden which is nice on sunny days (virtually every day in Townsville).
We found it after an exhausting search through Townsville's real estate market which is almost at breaking point through high rents.
Ours is $300- about 120 quid- a week.
It is in Railway Estate which means big trains hauling freight rumble past occasionally, about 100 yards from the front door. But they are not too often, and there is a fairly busy road inbetween too.
Finding affordable furniture was a conundrum as there is no real second-hand market in Townsville - at least not one which you can get anything decent AND cheap. Stuff was either ready for the tip or overpriced.
So we ended up getting stuff new mostly. Didn't cost us too much though as a table and chairs was $400 (GBP160) and a pair of leather sofas $1400 (GBP600). We also got a water-saving washing machine for $550 (GBP220) which the government gives back a $200 rebate for being good.
The finishing touch was our two siamese fighting fish, Karate and Chop, who sit in side-by-side tanks near the front door. They seem to be getting used to each other, though Karate is definitely slower and more chilled than Chop, who races around his tank all the time like a nutter.
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