WW2 Also Reached the Pacific
Saturday, June 25th, 2005For obvious reasons, the history of World-War-II is studied quite extensively in Israeli schools. For the same reasons, highschool students get a very detailed description of the war at the european front, while neglecting almost entirely the other major front of the war - namely the Pacific.
During the 1940’s the Japanese and the Americans where fighting all over the pacific, with some really big naval battles taking place. The city of Townsville (yes Oded, it actually exists) changed its face during the war years - from a small university-city it grew immensely, hosting some 90,000 soldiers and becoming an important base for the Americans and their Australian friends - a base for controlling the Coral Sea. As a military post, the Japanese tried several times to attack the city. Bombings occured once in a while, and the war reached Australia.
The Islands off the Australian east coast were also affected. Cid Harbor at the Whitsundays (remember Cid? Cook’s dog which received an island? This island also has a deep-water harbor) became a major maritime base; and Magnetic island received its share of posts, radars, and gun stations for protecting nearby Townsville. After the war the aussies were smart enough to disassemble all the military forts, so the island regained its natural beauty instead of having some ugly watchtowers left for the next generations.
Most of Magnetic island was declared a national park. Walking routes were made, and some of them go just by the ruins of the war-time posts and buildings. One of the most popular tracks is called ‘the forts’, and goes just between these ruins - inside a nice eucaliptus forest. The ruins themselves are very unimpressive to an Israeli eye (I’m way passed being excited of an old ammunition bunker), but the natural reserve that surrounds them is very nice, and is said to be packed with hidden animals - which is the main reason I did this small track yesterday.
Most of the animals remained hidden. I was very lucky - and proud - to spot a Koala on one tree off the road. This particular Koala had a baby in its pocket, which makes them two. Koalas are very hard to spot - the small fur-balls just hang silently on the trees, without any movement, concealed by the leaves and with a fur that is exactly the same color of the tree bark. Excellent camouflage - you can easily pass one without noticing it.
Besides the Koala the hiking was somewhat disappointing, because I hoped to see much more animals (they promised Rock Wallabies! Where are they?) In the night, though, when we were sitting in the beach together with Peter&Lucia the Slovaks and with Alexandra the Dutch we did see a tree possum, which caused much excitement.
We met the Slovak couple and the Dutch girl in our hostel yesterday. We just went for the shore because they wanted to drink silently - on Friday nights they hold some parties here, and you’re not allowed to drink anywhere: you’re supposed to buy on the parties their very expensive alcohol, instead of the normal Bring-Your-Own policy. They were having yesterday a “full-moon” party at Magnetic (oddly enough, the moon was full two days ago; they just rescheduled it to fit for the weekend - I don’t know why - the party was meant for backpackers, who don’t care about weekends anyway). There were plenty of people on the party, but it was bad - much more boys than girls, and aweful music - heavy dance going on the direction of trans music. Good that I didn’t go there; it was at the other end of the island and I paid the site a visit on the afternoon to check in advance what was going to be there. We sent Alex (who was quite enthusiastic about it) and indeed he told us that my worst inspections about this party were correct.
Today Roey finishes his diving course. I will probably do one dive with him to celebrate this occasion, and then we’ll head back to Townsville - tomorrow they have a market day there!
