Self-Guided Tours
Download our heritage and cemetery walks brochures for self-guided tours around Townsville.
For information about mobile walking trails including the Townsville Tours and Trails app, visit our Mobile Apps page.
Heritage Trails
These brochures covers a series of walking trails, designed to reveal Townsville's rich heritage.
The walks will help you experience the city’s diversity of historical architecture, lush tropical gardens and impressive array of natural attractions. They are filled with interpretive information and hundreds of photographic opportunities to acquaint you with social and cultural experiences that create lifetime memories.
Trail 1 – Civic Pride
Traces the growth of the heart of Townsville city. The walk displays the consolidation of the westward movement to the city in conjunction with the expansion of insurance, commercial and banking institutions. While many of the buildings exhibit landmark qualities, all contribute to the streetscape and provide an understanding of Townsville’s emergence as the administrative centre of North Queensland.
- Trail 1 – Civic Pride (PDF, 3.2 MB)
Trail 2 – Early Townsville
Reveals the city’s earliest port-related commercial precinct in the original ‘heart of the city’. The walk traces the 1880s transformation of the Flinders Street East precinct from single storey timber structures into one and two storey masonry buildings. Reflected in the fabric and function of these buildings are glimpses of Townsville’s early character and development.
- Trail 2 – Early Townsville (PDF, 1.4 MB)
Trail 3 – South Townsville and Port
Tells the story of the relationship between the industrial and the residential aspects of this working class suburb. From its earliest days Ross Island, now known as South Townsville, was a hub for industry and many men from the suburb worked at the port and in associated industries. The early architecture of the suburb reflects its social make-up whilst numerous pubs provide a snapshot of the daily social interaction between wharfies, seamen, meatworkers and railway workers.
- Trail 3 – South Townsville and Port (PDF, 3.2 MB)
West End Cemetery Trails
This is a series of trails that have been produced to enable visitors at the West End Cemetery to undertake self guided walks. Projects such as this provide the community with a better understanding of the city’s rich history, who the people were and what life was like.
Trail 1 – Life, Death and Memorialisation in Early Townsville
The focus of this trail is on the lives of some of Townsville’s most well-known individuals, recognising their important contribution to the development of the city in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Among the individuals recognised on this trail are Thankful Percy Willmett, John Philp and the Captain Henry Daniel Sinclair.
Trail 2 – Townsville Women
This brochure recognises the contribution by Townsville women to the development of the city in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In compiling this trail we have included stories of the lives of average Townsville women, not just those who were famous. Among the women recognised in this brochure are Janet Burgess, Esther Camp, Hannah Pengelly, Rose Blaxland and Catherine Robinson.
- West End Cemetery Trail 2 – Townsville Women (PDF, 8.1 MB)
Trail 3 – Publicans Trail
The focus of this brochure concerns the lives of Townsville’s publicans and recognises the contribution of Townsville’s past publicans to the development of the city in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Among the publicans recognised in this brochure are Andrew Ball, the Honourable John Deane and Charles Wyatt.
- West End Cemetery Trail 3 – Publican's Trail (PDF, 9.3 MB)
