South Queensland

The long pier at Hervey Bay

We stayed in a lovely town called Maryborough (more later) and visited the surrounding area. Hervey Bay is just a long line of little seaside resort towns. Quite nice with a long beach, aquarium, shops and so on. All a bit repetitive. We liked the tiny town of Burram Heads better - a real old fashioned beach holiday place.


Carlo Sand Blow

Another lovely place was called Rainbow Sands and as the name suggests, the sand comes in about 5 different colours. We sat on the beach; went for a paddle; watched sky divers land; and tried to avoid the 4WD that charge up and down the hard sands of the beach! Lovely pair of sea eagles soaring above us.
Another thing to see there was the amazing sand dune that is about 50 foot above the sea - not the usual place for a dune. The sand was blown up the cliff face and along the valley and is now encroaching into the forest. A steep (and hot) climb, but the views were worth it. You couldn't walk barefoot on the sand as it was red hot (so I walked in Gordon's footsteps!)


Queenslander style house Me and ????

We liked Maryborough - the City. A place only needs to reach a population of 20,000 in Queensland and it automatically becomes one.
We started off with an historical guided tour lead by "Bert". He showed us all the interesting building; told us about the flood problems; how trade started and much more. It started as a wool shipping port on the Mary River and developed into sawmills, boat building, first steam train built in 1880s; and they still build the modern train carriages. The original settlement had to be literally lifted up and relocated as when the river floods, it can flood up to the second floor of a building.

Can you see who I am with in the other picture? PL Travers (Helen Goff actually) was born in Maryborough and they are proud of the connection. The statue is outside the bank where her father was manager and where she was born. They have renamed the street Cherry tree Lane!

The houses in this state are of a particular style referred to as "Queenslander style". They are built of painted wood with intricate verandas and on stilts to allow the winds to pass under and keep the house cool. One of these - Mavisbanks - was open to the public. Well, where to start. It is hidden behind a jungle of ferns. When we got in, a grubby looking bearded guy took our money (though he didn't have enough to give me all my change!) and started the tour. Well, you could call it that. More of a wander around the overcrowded house pointing at and muttering about (knowledgeably) some of the objects. The items ranged from antique knee hole desks, shoes, dolls, china, lamps to a model T Ford in the garage. An antique dealers dream. The items there ranged from the 1880s (house was built 1874) to the 1940s and a good majority of the things were in the mail order catalogues published in the 1880s that he had originals of! The most modern thing was a TV and DVD player as the couple actually lived in the house. It was great as you could touch and pick up anything you wanted to!! I was in heaven and it was all very eccentric. We talked about it for days!

We next drove down to Brisbane, but our stay was not destined to be long. I don't know why they thought they could do this but Sting, Billy Joel, Circe du Soliel and some famous Dutch violinist all went at the same time as us! Bit like Joseph and Mary - no room at the Inn!!
I the end we managed a small but decent hotel in the city centre for 2 nights. And when I say small, I also mean our room. Big enough for a double bed and not much else. Harry Potter would have thought it was luxury - not under the stairs but behind the lift.
We did a whistle stop tour on the sightseeing bus and the City Cat (catamaran ferry on the river) and saw as much as we could. Lovely city; fabulous buildings; great parks and good shops. We were particularly taken with the water dragons (lizards) in the park and the fabulous Xmas lights on the Casino.



Water Dragon in the park Gordon makes friends!




Christmas lights outside the casino (former treasury!)

On Wednesday evening we got on a coach which took us and our luggage over into New South Wales. We got off at Casino railway station where we took the night train to Sydney getting off at Maitland. You could see why the state was so named. The views were of green rolling hills and valleys, boyo. At Casino we were overcome by the most enormous thunder storm. The rain fell so hard, lightening flashed and the thunder sounded as if it would knock the station over. And then, all blue skies with a rosy red sunset. We went first class (only seats) to get away from the backpackers and an annoying local yokel; had tea; tried to sleep; and were woken abruptly at 4.15AM with "are you for Maitland?". When we said yes the reply was "we are here", so we had to quickly gather our things and get off before the train moved on. The station was deserted, but luckily before we could get too low Anthony came to collect us! Oh to spend the rest of the night in a bed!
And now - NSW!!