Home  |  Location  |  Geology & Climate Change  |  History & People  |  Common Interest  |  Landscapes  |  The Views welcome to the Town Common learnscape people, place & change: learning to live in the landscape The Townsville Town Common The features of the greater Town Common (including the Rowes Bay wetlands) were formed within the last 5,000 years (Trezise and Stephenson 1990) through normal coastal processes. The wetlands and lowlands of the Town Common are an aftermath of sand dune formation and water catchment drainage processes including erosion and sedimentation. Using the natural resources (food, water and materials) of the wetlands and surrounds would have been a normal part of Aboriginal Traditional Owner’s nature based economy. Traditional Owner natural resource use was based on sustainable harvest and this served to maintain the wetlands in good ecological condition until after European settlement. It is obvious that the nature based Aboriginal economy was more harmonious and tuned to the environment than the economy of the European newcomers. Changing Landscapes The Rowes Bay to Pallarenda foreshore and inland coastal landscape once featured a connected system of hills and peaks, rocky headlands, mudflats and beach backed by dunes, estuaries, mangrove swamps, stream channels and ancient beach ridges. Prior to European settlement the most dramatic changes to the landscape would have resulted from natural climatic extremes e.g. cyclones and storms, flood, extended dry periods and fire. This already variable landscape has changed dramatically since European settlement with portions of coastal wetlands drained and filled to host residential development and urban infrastructure thereby degrading the environmental infrastructure. The most significant human driven changes to the landscape and its hydrology (water movement) have occurred since 1869 when the Town Common was gazetted. Common Title October 1924 February 1914 June 1869 1869 Cadastral Evolution Town Common The Sanitary Reserve Pasturage Reserve SRS 1848 Sepia Map The Chronologic Town Common 4000 BC to 1000 AD Coastal and catchment processes acted to form the dunes, coastal plains and waterways and create the Rowes Bay wetlands and associated landscapes from Kissing Point to Many Peaks Range. The system of dunes and swales extends approximately 2.75 kilometres inland from the existing coastline. ???? to +19?? Aboriginal Traditional Owners would have used the Town Common and surrounding wetlands as part of their range for hunting and gathering food and other resources. Parts of the Many Peaks Range may have been used for camp sites and provided a vista to see what was happening on the surrounding plains and out to sea. 1864 Establishment of Townsville by European settlers. 1865 Market gardens and a dairy farm established near Jimmy’s Lookout. Vineyard established at Kissing Point. 1869 The Townsville Town Common is gazetted (GG 26.6.1869) and includes the Rowes Bay wetlands. 1870s The vineyard had closed down and the market garden area was being called German Gardens. The Town Common is in use for pasturage of town residents and visitors cattle and horses. 1874 - 1891 Development of the Townsville Port breakwaters. 1900 Residential housing starts to extend towards Rowes Bay Pre 1870 The vineyard had closed down and the market garden area was being called German Gardens 1870 Development of the Townsville Port breakwaters 1874 to 1891 Residential housing starts to extend towards Rowes Bay 1900 The Sanitary Reserve over much of the Rowes Bay wetlands was established Early 1914 The Townsville Town Common is gazetted as a Pasturage Reserve under new land administration legislation (The Land Act of 1910). 1914 - 1918 World War I. German Gardens renamed Belgian Gardens Early 1920s Heatley’s Parade and the road to the Pallarenda Quarantine Station were constructed 1924 The Sanitary Reserve was established from the Pasturage Reserve. It included much of the current Rowes Bay wetlands 1939 Townsville airport/military base established  1939 - 1945 World War II 1940s to 1960s Tidal mudflats between Castle Hill and Kissing Point are ‘reclaimed’ for residential development 1950s Most of Belgian Gardens and North Ward streets had been laid out 1961 The population of Belgian Gardens (129 houses), North Ward (113 houses) and Rowes Bay (76 houses) had swollen to around 1600 1960s Most of the Rowes Bay street network had been laid out. The One Mile Creek drain was nearing completion, replacing the lower 0.8 km of Mundy Creek, as part of the Town Common drainage works. Dec 1971 Cyclone Althea see Bureau of Metreology report (4.6 Mb) 1974 Mundy Creek channel reclaimed and built on (Built score = Belgian Gardens 151 houses, North Ward 129 houses and Rowes Bay 88 houses). 1970s RSL retirement village was built comprising some 70 villas. 1990s Another 2.5 hectares of wetlands were approved for reclamation to extend the RSL retirement village 2007 2007- 2010 2010 - 2012