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Far North Queensland calling... ?

A

arithmetic

Active Member
Hi :)
There are about 200 thousand people on Cape York. If there are 25 autists in every thousand, there are about 5000 autists in this wider area.
I asked at "Autism Connect" what facilities there are in my area and heard there is a group in Townsville just 4 hours drive away... ? The lady I spoke with would have liked me to start my own group, but I don't want to go back to Facebook.
Are there any other FNQ people here?
 
I know there's a couple of Queenslanders but I'm not sure about the far north.

Personally I think facebook is a very bad choice for these sorts of groups anyway. The way they are crosslinked to so much other social media just makes it far too public and attracts the wrong sort of attention. Anyone can search and discover people's posts in a forum like this too, but they have to search for it instead of it just showing up in their feeds.
 
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Outdated said:
I know there's a couple of Queenslanders but I'm not sure about the far north.

Personally I think facebook is a very bad choice for these sorts of groups anyway. The way they are crosslinked to so much other social media just makes it far too public and attracts the wrong sort of attention. Anyone can search and discover people's posts in a forum like this too, but they have to search for it instead of it just showing up in their feeds.
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Ohh! I saw a reply :) and you know what I hoped to find. Silly me, I guess.
I lost my trust of the people I'd tried to be friends with on Facebook, and closed my account. I'm afraid to start again, especially with the idea of making new friends... "The Nasties" might find out I'm back, after these 5 years, and start hacking away at me again. (Ain't that what Zuckerberg wants, btw?)

I'm here. That'll do, for social media.
 
Go to Rockhampton? yes it was a training course which I turned into an extended holiday, hiring a car and going to Gladstone. I have also been to Cairns and Daintree but alas it rained non-stop unseasonally during the dry season.
 
I live in Brisbane, and have travelled by road as far north as Thursday Island. OK, the last bit was by ferry. And we flew back to Cairns. Have also flown to Cairns and caught the train back to Brisbane. Couple of trips to Daintree - it’s almost always raining there. It is a rainforest. ;)
 
Judge said:
I'm dying to visit the Australian Armour & Artillery Museum in Cairns. :cool:
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If you're travelling that sort of distance you should also stop off at the East Point War Museum in Darwin, although that's gone downhill a bit over the last couple of decades. It was brilliant when it was solely focused on the war as it pertained to Darwin but they're a commercial enterprise and couldn't help themselves, they just had to keep adding more "attractions" to make more money. Now it's more a confused jumble of European propaganda.

The war in Darwin was a lot more intense than most Aussies ever get taught about, especially in the beginning. We had very little in the way of defences in the north and at the first sign of attack most of our military officers in the region jumped on the train to Adelaide River and left the common soldiers and civilians to fend for themselves.

That started in February, the yanks didn't arrive until October, in the meantime it was the Dutch that saved our sorry arses, 10,000 men came from Indonesia to help defend Australia's coast. They never get a mention in the modern versions of history yet if you go to the Adelaide River War Cemetary you'll find an entire section devoted to the Dutch that died defending Australian soil.
 
I'm getting old! I completely forgot I spent a whole year in Darwin in 1991. Great fishing! If you survive the midges and crocs.
 
Cyber said:
I'm getting old! I completely forgot I spent a whole year in Darwin in 1991. Great fishing! If you survive the midges and crocs.
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I was there from 92 to 95 then I went down to Melbourne chasing work. Did well in Melbourne but I burnt out in 2001 and headed back to Darwin for the slower pace of life. Continued burning out and ran away to live in the long grass in 2008. Left the region in the end of 2019, down to Adelaide to get a Housing Trust home and a pension.
 
Outdated said:
The war in Darwin was a lot more intense than most Aussies ever get taught about, especially in the beginning. We had very little in the way of defences in the north and at the first sign of attack most of our military officers in the region jumped on the train to Adelaide River and left the common soldiers and civilians to fend for themselves.
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My grandfather was stationed on Horn Island. He recalled the Japanese strafed them in the morning on their way to Darwin, then strafed them on their way back in the afternoon. I have been there and seen the slit trenches they huddled in. He was apparently never the same once he came back.
 
AuAL said:
My grandfather was stationed on Horn Island. He recalled the Japanese strafed them in the morning on their way to Darwin, then strafed them on their way back in the afternoon. I have been there and seen the slit trenches they huddled in. He was apparently never the same once he came back.
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In the early 90s a lot of that sort of infrastructure was still in place right throughout the whole region, and the same as happens in Europe builders still occasionally come across unexploded bombs. Locals took me exploring some of the military tunnel system underneath East Point too, it was pretty cramped quarters but including a sister site the other side of the harbour at Mandorah it was underground housing for 200,000 men. At one stage there was over 500,000 men on rotation in and out of Darwin and they had to share bunks and take turns sleeping in shifts.
 
Outdated said:
I was there from 92 to 95 then I went down to Melbourne chasing work. Did well in Melbourne but I burnt out in 2001 and headed back to Darwin for the slower pace of life. Continued burning out and ran away to live in the long grass in 2008. Left the region in the end of 2019, down to Adelaide to get a Housing Trust home and a pension.
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I worked for about 6 months as a lab tech in the Nursing School at Myilly Pt and approx 6 months as an assistant on a fish farm in Darwin TAFE. Life is slower up in the territory. Culture and nightmarkets make it have a vibe like Bali or pacific islands and less like Australia. Food was incredible. Nightlife and crime is where reality hits. Also I ran out of work and went back south.
 
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