Tapp's Travels

At the end of the last episode we were just getting to Kenilworth…

This town used to have two things going for it.  The cheese factory and a rather fine art gallery.  Now it’s just the cheese place.  Apparently there are about 230 people who live in the town, but their problem is the lack of different surnames.  Currently about twelve!  Everyone is related to everyone else.  Give or take.  A rather restricted gene pool!  This information MUST be true because it came from one of the 230 locals!!!

We came across a similar sort of thing in our favourite gallery, “Art on Cairncross”.  There was a ceramic artist, the gallery owner, a random couple of potential punters and us present.  Glenda was admiring a picture by Sarah Larson with lots of trees and a series of flooded gulleys.

(Thanks Jayne and Tony for allowing me to photograph the picture.)

The ceramic artist said it was of an area a couple of hundred kms North of Malaney – West of a place called Biloela near the Dawson River.  (Looking at the map that would put it close to the excitingly named town of “Banana”!)  Anyway, this artist lady used to live there and apparently the scenery looked just like the picture showed it to look.  At this point the other lady customer piped up and said her brother, two aunts and a cousin lived there.  It turned out the brother was married to the artist’s previous neighbour.  They were probably all called Smith (sorry, John and Beryl!).  It’s a small world inland.  Perhaps “small” is the wrong word!  Limited gene pool maybe!

On the other hand – on the coast – things are getting stupidly busy.  Enormous numbers of new houses have been built in huge estates all the way up and down the coastal strip from Brisbane coming North.  And now, since we were here last, they’ve started to build a whole NEW CITY on what was originally a large tract of swampy land.  It’s called Aura.  A snappy name!  This will be a community of 44,000 people, no less!  That’s a city the size of Salisbury in the UK! It will become Australia’s 33rd largest city ahead of Gladstone and Tamworth!

This is a view of some of the first houses to be built in Aura.  There’s already one school nearing completion, another planned along with two sports complexes and an industrial estate.  The shopping centre is ready to launch, the coffee shop (!) is already in business and a rather executive play park is ready for Aura’s offspring as soon as they are sprung.

The city will add a desperately un-needed 20 – 30,000 cars to the local roads over the next few years.  I’d say the planners need a good talking to!  It’s a case of the local councils maximising their income!

More peacefully, we drove up the coast to Noosa and Noosaville on the Noosa River for a quiet walk and a cup of tea.  Well, it was afternoon.  In fact it was almost 3 o’clock – we only just squeaked in before the drawbridge was pulled up and all tables and chairs (apart from ours) were taken inboard.  At least four customers were sent packing while we sat there grinning at them!

The river front at Noosaville.

Now, before I finish this episode, I just want to say a bit about roadkill!  It’s amazing.  There are sooo few vehicles on the country roads after dusk but, sadly, so many dead kangaroos and wallabies.  More this year than usual.  Maybe this is tempting fate, but we have driven hundreds of kms, often late in the afternoon but we have only seen two or three roos on roadside verges.  The reason their plight is worse than usual this year is said to be the lack of rain.  Under drought conditions, the limited rainfall running off the roads can give a narrow zone of green grass immediately adjacent to the tarmac.  This apparently concentrates the creatures close to the road and thus to the occasional car or truck.  Their tendency to panic, run in front of the traffic and then freeze in the headlights does the rest.  While cars may swerve to avoid damage, the mega-trucks certainly won’t.  They have massive flat front bumpers to deal with anything that gets in their way.  The poor roos are history!

I just felt the need to explain that factlet before I got to…

THE TRIAL BY FRUIT!

There were three men who were lost in the forest. They were captured by cannibals. The cannibal king told the prisoners that they could live if they pass the trial. The first step of the trial was to go into the forest and get ten pieces of the same kind of fruit. So all three men went separate ways to gather fruits.

The first one came back and said to the king, “I brought ten apples.” The king then explains the trial to him – you have to shove the fruits up your ass without any expression on your face or you’ll be eaten. The first apple went in…but on the second one he winced in pain, so he was killed and went to heaven. The second guy arrives with ten berries. When the king explained the trial to him, he thought to himself that this should be easy. 1…2…3…4…5…6…7…8…but on the ninth berry he burst out in laughter, therefore also was killed. The first guy and the second guy met in heaven. The first one asked, “Why did you laugh, you almost got away with it?” The second one replied, “I couldn’t help it. I saw the third guy coming with pineapples!”