SHOPPING !!!!!

One of the first places I visit after arriving in Yandina are the Eumundi Markets. They have to be seen to be believed with an uncountable number of stalls selling all sorts of merchandise from fruit and vegetables through food, plants, furniture, clothing, jewellery, paintings, pottery, ornaments - you name it, it is sold there. In the past I have bought amber, opal, mabe pearl, silver and enamel jewellery there, numerous articles of clothing, beautifully finished wooden spatulas, cake slicers, stirrers, etc. and looked longingly at the antique style furniture. There are even small wooden 'bottles' with a stopper which, when impregnated with perfumes or oils and placed either in your wardrobes or drawers, give out a lovely fragrance.


The food is something else with various dishes from many countries......and the fudge ! All the flavours imaginable with a few more thrown in for good measure. The vegetables and fruit are straight from the grower and since this is the area where lots of tropical fruit is grown, it is so hard to restrain yourself from buying much more than you could ever eat.


The markets begin very early in the morning and are held on Wednesdays (a smaller market but still big compared to others) and the larger one on Saturdays. It is a good idea to get there very early in the morning if you want a parking spot close by and convenient. There is parking in the streets but a lot of it is up on the crests of very steep hills and after walking round the markets for several hours the last thing you need is a 30-40 degree or so slope to climb before you reach your car ! Anne usually stays home when I visit the market since she is used to it and feels that I am better off browsing around by myself but it never fails to fascinate me. One of my friends in Sydney often asks me where I got this or that and usually before I can say anything she adds - I know, Eumundi markets !


I am not too sure what this character was about, apart from promoting 5-star toilets, but he was ogling the girls while parading up and down. In turn the girls couldn't get away from him fast enough !


The next centres to visit are the craft villages up on the Blackall Ranges which run parallel to the coast line.

Montville has a huge array of specialty shops which sell designer clothing, jewellery, antiques, souvenirs, a marvellous selection of garden pots, hand made wood ware such as photo albums and frames and other small objects as well as larger pieces of furniture. There are some excellent potteries in this area, too. Talking of pottery, Anne's daughter has a friend who has his own pottery studio and this is always worth a visit to see what his latest offerings are. I came home last time with mugs, plates, bowls and a huge platter with an abstract design on them in the earthy colours I love. The last time I was in Montville I bought shirts, camisoles and slacks made from hemp which interchange beautifully with the rest of my wardrobe and wash very well. One shop has a range of hand painted shirts and blouses in all the colours of the rainbow while yet another sells those lovely Venetian beads and painted masks. There are lace shops and leather shops and shops selling Scottish and Irish clothing and souvenirs and one or two selling antique jewellery as well as more modern pieces made from old fragments of very old Chinese pottery set in silver.

One of the cafes in Montville has its own very efficient plate clearer. Unfortunately, he tends to try to clear the plate before you have finished !


Maleny is another good place to shop in the ranges especially for another favourite of mine – cheese......


.......while close to the cheese factory is a gallery selling excellent paintings.


There is a good antique centre just outside Maleny with a cafe attached which has a great views over towards the coastline and the tall buildings of Mooloolaba and Maroochydore.






In Yandina itself is the world famous Buderim Ginger Factory set in beautifully landscaped grounds which can be seen during a miniature railway trip.....










.....while just across the road is the Nut Place which sells all kinds of nuts but specialises in the Macadamia Nuts. If you thought that nuts came either raw or roasted and salted then think again. The macadamias can be bought in all types of flavours like sour cream and onion, garlic, chilli, honey roasted, sesame honey roasted, butter flavoured, BBQ, Wasabi, plain roasted, Milk chocolate, white chocolate and dark chocolate coated, hickory smoked bacon roasted ........ you get the idea ? They also have macadamia paste which is like peanut butter.




They also sell cosmetic products like macadamia daytime and nighttime moisturisers, body butter and emu oil, avocado and tea tree creams.

Macadamias, by the way, are native to Australia.

There is no wonder I drive up to visit Anne - I could never fly up to Queensland since I need the car to transport home all the things I buy up there.

FRASER ISLAND

One of the side trips I did on a previous visit to Anne and Jack's was a coach tour to Fraser Island. After being collected from Noosa Heads in a mini-bus, we met up with a big 4-wheel drive coach just north of Noosa and headed up towards the largest sand island in the world - Fraser Island.

The first surprise was when we were driven straight down onto the beach and up the ramp onto the vehicular ferry which was to take us across to the island. As we were crossing the strait we were told by the guide that on some crossings, whales, dolphins, turtles and dugongs had been seen but unfortunately, not on our trip.



Fraser Island has native turpentine trees with some of the hardest wood known which after the end of WW2 were used to rebuild the docks in the Pool of London as well as being used to repair the foundations of the floating city of Venice.

Our tour guide told us that the concrete road we were travelling on had been built by the loggers many years ago. At one point, he suddenly told the driver to stop the coach and he jumped down and dived into the scrub at the side of the road and came out with this snake. He encouraged everyone to touch it since it was a harmless carpet snake and while the children were eager to do so, quite a few of the adults decided to give it a miss.



Shortly after we saw the snake the coach turned off the road and headed onto the beach where the tide had ebbed enough to allow us to use the main road on the island - the beach. We drove for quite a way on firm packed sand with the surf rolling in towards us and the wheels of the coach sometimes ploughing through the water. We saw a turtle which had crawled ashore to lay its eggs but had died before it could return to the surf and after crossing a creek several dingos came out of the bush to wander around looking for something to eat.



Being an island made completely of sand, the rainwater is well and truly filtered by the time it reaches the many creeks and was some of the clearest and purest water I have seen. Many times I didn't realise that there was water in the creek bed until the light caught the ripples. There are several freshwater lakes on the island and while quite a few of the coach party went swimming it was extremely icy cold so I gave it a miss.



After leaving the beach we headed towards a settlement built in a clearing in the bush where we had lunch before continuing on towards the lakes. We came across another pack of dingos after the coach had parked and remembering how dangerous these native dogs can be we gave them a wide berth - if they wanted to fall asleep in the middle of footpath then far be it for us to make them get out of the way. In fact not long after our visit the rangers on the island had to cull a few of the dingos after one attacked a tourist.



Before very long it was time to head home again, once more driving along the main road - the beach. As we turned onto the beach a surprise was in store for us with a pod of whales just out beyond the line of breakers. Once the guide saw them he contacted another ranger and as we drove off, a light plane took off along the beach to give another group of tourists a bird's eye view of the whales.

We could see a storm brewing as we headed south but fortunately it bypassed us and before long we were in the queue wating for the ferry to take us back to the mainland.





Instead of going back to Noosa by the inland road, the tide was far enough out for us to use the beach on the mainland as a road and as the wreck of the Cherry Venture appeared, the coach stopped for us to have a closer look at it. This was a ship that had been driven ashore by a cyclone and over the many years since, it has been driven even further ashore but now the bottom has rotted away I think it has found it's final resting place.





The sun was setting as we approached Noosa and it was dark by the time we arrived back at Sugar Cane Farm. It had been a marvellous day and one which I intend experiencing again in the not too distant future.

ARRIVAL

After such a long journey it was so good to get out of the car and into the house for a cup of tea and to talk over old times and new with Anne and Jack. We each caught up with the news of our families and started making plans for what to do during my visit to them.



Like me, Anne is a bird lover but she has many more mouths to feed than I do and her's seem to be constantly backwards and forwards to the window like this Butcher Bird.


Sugar Cane Farmhouse is a typical old Queenslander style of house and while the front door step is at ground level.........


....the back of the house is way above the ground, thankfully, because they have as their back boundary the Maroochy River which sometimes bursts its banks. The highest the water has come since they have been living there is the back steps.


Their garden is superb, this is just a small part of it, and has been created over two acres of land with lots of tropical fruit trees and many many different types of flowers and shrubs such as gingers and heliconias.


....and even bananas.


Other things in the garden are not exactly my favourites. This Golden Orb Spider had made its home in a hanging basket just outside the front door and when Anne wanted to change the basket, she carefully unhooked the old one to make way for the new and then transferred the edges of the web to the new one. No way could I ever do anything like that ! The only thing I know of that she has had destroyed was an aggressive brown snake which had chased her when she was in the garden one day. These are one of the most poisonous snakes in the world and even Anne decided that there was a limit to her conservation principles - she said she wanted to live, too.


Ah.....the Bush Turkey ! These birds make their nest in a huge - and I really do mean huge - mound of leaves, twigs, grass - in fact anything it can scrape together. The mounds can be several feet high and cover quite a few square feet of ground with the eggs being buried in the middle of it. The turkeys then go away and forget all about them.

Anne had planted some small camellias when a bush turkey decided that that was just where the mound needed to be so before anyone knew anything about it there was a very large area covered with all the new mulch that had just been scattered over the nearby rose bed. No sign of the new camellias ! Very carefully, Anne removed the mound litter and placed it in a neat pile a good distance away.

The next morning the mound was back in the original position.

It was moved again.

The next day it was back, and the next and the next...

Anne then realised that the mound was being built in the early hours of the morning so the next morning, she was up early and dressed in a mauve dressing gown and matching fluffy slippers, opening and closing a multi coloured umbrella in the turkeys face. Everyone told her that she would NEVER get the better of one of these birds but she was determined that a bird brain wouldn't beat her !

.....and it didn't, but the camellias didn't survive.



The Maroochy River, Sugar Cane Farm is situated on a bend in the river.


The nearest beach to Anne and Jack is Coolum Beach - beautiful white sands, good surf - paradise.....