Archive for May, 2008

How’s this for two quick entries in the blog !
So no “War & Peace” this time.  We left Maryborough and only got as far as Bundaberg before deciding it was worth a visit here too.  Home of the famous rum, of course, but haven’t partaken of any of it.  The smell is enough for me!

Now the ginger beer barrel is something else and we certainly paid a visit there.  Not only is the ginger beer delicious but their lemon, lime and bitters was just the thing on a hot day.

The Burnett River runs through the town.  This is one of the many bridges which span the river and the parkland surrounding it.

For those who know my aversion to Melbourne trams coming hurtling down the street towards me, how much worse was this.  Driving along the road and all I see is this huge train coming straight for me.  I had actually pulled over before I realised that it was turning.

Yesterday, we went out to Gin Gin to do the market.  This is a one street town with the strangest parking we have yet to come across.  Check out this picture and every car you see is parked and it was like this the whole length of the town.  Two rows hapharzardly everywhere.

The market wasn’t great but Bev, you will be interested in the fact that it was $10.00 for the stall and they then supplied you with a full cooked breakfast, sausage, bacon, egg, beans,onion and  toast included in your stall fee.  Another first.

On the way back to Bundaberg we came across the “Mystery Craters” and couldn’t resist a look.

We are off again tomorrow, further north.  Probably headed for Rockhampton but the best laid plans usually change before morning
 

It’s been such a long time since I typed anything of our travels that I’m having to cast my mind back too far. From now on I will type the blog more regularly even if we can’t upload it until we get access.

Well, we headed off from Coffs Harbour and drove straight through to the Gold Coast. We dropped into to visit Motley1’s sister (or blister as she so sweetly puts it). We spent the night with her and then headed off the next morning for Toowoomba. We booked into the caravan park there and set off to visit Motley1’s grandchildren. As we have decided at this stage (plans change regularly) to head north and then west, we thought we would visit for a while as we have no idea when we will be back on the East Coast.

The weather was lovely apart from very cool evenings and mornings. We drove to Laidley for the market on Saturday amidst the fog. It was very picturesque, turned into a lovely day and a fairly good market. After the market, we headed out to the dam to try out Motley1’s number 1 son’s new boat. I wasn’t too sure about any of this, as I think reenacting “Titanic” was asking for trouble!

On Sunday we had a market at Queen’s Park in Toowoomba where again the day started very cool (or in my words freezing cold.) Bev….the scarves came out of the cupboard and just like Rokeby it was almost midday before I could take it off my neck ! We spent some time with the family and decided that we would try an Agricultural Show the following weekend instead of the markets. Dalby which was about an hours drive away had a two day show on the Friday and Saturday so we booked in to that.

Friday was a good day, Show Day, a public holiday for the town. We also enjoyed the show, especially the camel races which I’d never seen before. There was the biggest carnival that I have seen for years with the most horrendous rides which had long queues all day long. Saturday was hardly worth being there as most people had been during the day on Friday and would only come on the Saturday for the carnival and fireworks.

Sunday we did a market outside of Toowoomba at a place called Carbalah where there is a huge place selling clocks. We were exhausted after three days of marketing (not the work but the very, very early rises).

We made up our minds not to go back to the Gold Coast but to carry on inland and do another one or two agricultural shows and see how they worked for us. We booked Kingaroy Show for the following weekend. Having told Motley1’s sister that we would be back to the coast and not having seen the other sister and brother-in-law at all on our short overnight visit we arranged to drive back to the coast and have dinner with them before we left. It was a long drive, almost 400km round trip. After our farewells to the family we headed for the Showgrounds at Kingaroy.

There was a small caravan park attached to the showgrounds which was very handy for us as the trade hall where we had the stall was just a couple of hundred metres from the caravan. On the way, we stopped at the Cooyer pub where Ben made instant friends with Ryan, the owner’s son. I could have left anytime but he really would have liked Ben to stay longer.

Kingaroy is famous for being the peanut capital of Australia, this is the processing plant right in the middle of town. The Australian Peanut Company has all these silos full of peanuts. Thinking about the peanuts and how could one avoid doing so, I realized that I had no idea how they grew. Were they on trees? Did they grow on bushes? So we set off to track down a peanut grower and ask the relevant questions. I can now with some authority tell you that they grow underground, like potatoes and are harvested in much the same way. Due to the drought, apparently there have been more peanuts grown in the Northern Territory now than in Kingaroy.

The show again was not too bad on the first day and abysmal on day two. We did enjoy the show though. A motorbike stunt rider, the Hilux Heroes ( a ute driving display team) and a huge fireworks display were the highlights of day 1. There was a speedway meeting on Day 2 but by the time it started the weather was bitterly cold and even wrapped up in Bev’s scarves there was no way I was venturing out to stand for hours on end. Motley1 (he’s hardier than I am) went and really enjoyed the meeting.

Monday morning we headed north again to Gympie. We stopped at a Driver Survivor for coffee (It was a public holiday here in Queensland, May Day, no settle down that’s not a call for help that was what the holiday was for!) Gympie is the hilliest city I think I’ve ever been in. The main street of the town is flat and we strolled along here looking in the shops but take any side street and the street rose in an almost perpendicular manner. There are some lovely old Queenslander homes here and some impressive parks.

Tuesday morning and Ben woke up feeling bad and had a sore throat. He continued to get worse over the next couple of days and was running a fairly high fever, so we set off for the doctors. Toxic Tonsilitis was the diagnosis and antibiotics were dispensed. Within 24 hours he was feeling much better.

On Saturday we headed for Pomona for the market. It wasn’t a great market for us, so least said. Pomona is best known for it’s “King of the Mountain” race up the hill you can see in the background here. We didn’t have time to climb up there! You know we would have if we hadn’t been so busy…..

Gympie is known as “The Town that saved Queensland” when gold was found here just as the state was almost bankrupt. So we went for a look at the old Gold Mine. There is still a working goldmine in the area where apparently they still mine a fair amount of gold each year.

On Sunday we headed for a little town called Imbil. There was a market there and as the Valley Rattler (This is the Mary Valley.) steamed into town every Sunday we thought it might be quite a busy little spot. We were mistaken though and again it was a pretty mediocre market. There are signs everywhere that say “Save Mary” or “We love Mary” and I thought finally someone cares, but no, the river is called the Mary River and the state government are talking about building a dam and rerouting the river.

On Tuesday we headed a little further north to Maryborough and here is a real Heritage town. All the old building have been preserved, many of them are heritage trust listed and they boast more trees which are heritage listed than any other area in Australia. There are signs everywhere saying We Love Mary as it’s the town advertising slogan, but I prefer to think that hundreds of people have decided that I’m worth loving. The parks are beautiful, the houses and buildings are amazingly restored and there is even a statue to Mary Poppins , not the Mary of town fame though. The author of Mary Poppins was born here.

We have been here two days now and have taken more photographs here than I think we have taken in the last month. This Banyan Tree in the park is so impressive and Motley1 couldn’t resist climbing. We took an hour’s bus tour today to have a look around town with a guide and be able to see where we might head back to under our own steam to spend some time. We did the street market here in Maryborough on Thursday and it was one of the best organized markets we have been to in a long time. Saturday we went to Tin Can Bay and Sunday to Nikenbah which is just outside Hervey Bay. We went for a night drive through the town as a lot of the trees have fairy lights and the buildings like the Council Chamber and the School of Arts were lit up.

We headed north once more, we are not sure where we will spend our time but I want to see the town called 1770 which sounds interesting before heading any further north.