Banging on

Good heavens, after rather a dodgy start to the day (see my last post), we finally took ourselves out and about, and get this… we didn’t see the sea.

What no oceans?

That’s right, no more boring you with beaches. We stayed inland today to visit a place that is part of the Scenic Rim (best not ask) and we have come across it a couple of times before. It is Mount Tamborine which is odd because while it is described as a plateau on the accompanying website (linked), yet it certainly feels like a mountain as the car grudgingly chugs its way up some of the really steep and hairpin bends on offer. I thought plateaus were flat?

Unfortunately for you guys, due to the very nature of the roads we travelled, it wasn’t really possible to capture some of the most breath-taking scenery to date with its  full panoramic, vistoramic, hydromatic (?) views over the whole of the Gold coast, sheer drops, awesome housing, small holdings and full on forestation.

Click here for the Mount Tamborine album

Where we eventually chose to stop (the Mount Tamborine Winery and Homestead) was more or less just a single street of tourism based shopping and restaurants (Yay coffee TFFT) with the inclusion of the winery smack bang in the middle of where we wandered aimlessly through the endless crowds around us. And while we were there basically acting like tourists, being peddled all kinds of touristy (some of it quite high end and far from cheap) goods, believe it or not, the sales spiel we witnessed was quite polished and professional sometimes bordering on the downright pushy too.

But that wasn’t all we did though, we also took in some of the funky buildings along the way, met with real live and dangerous live animals, had a good old rummage through the shops (not root) and once again, got some good photos along with a further ubiquitous cup of coffee and cake slices.

There also be dragons up there.

Morning wood anyone?

There’s quite an esoteric feel to the place I found, with plenty of dragons, fairies, mythological gods and lots of other ‘Dungeons and Dragonsy’ type statuettes amid the many arts and crafts being carried out there. Crafts like glass wares, badges brooches and pendants, paintings, clothing, jewellery and even clock-making. There were also plenty of the normal trashy touristy trinkets up for grabs but I regret to inform, there was nothing of any worth for the hat.

Now under normal circumstances that would have been bad, bad, and even worrisome news. But being the resourceful kind of chap that I am (and without even knowing it I may add), I have had other’s collecting souvenirs on my behalf…

Today for instance, I was informed on behalf of the hat, that Jodie’s mother and partner (from back up in Bundy) had collected from their own Christmas mini travels, a cane toad’s head key ring along with another pin or two. And even as we sit and read this or look at the pictures here, they are being rushed over from Melbourne through Bowen and then by courier in time for my impending departure. Thanks for that guys.

AND AND AND....

We found another one of those vintage mash up car things again, maybe not as good as the one we had reported on earlier, but no less shiney and eye catching. It was parked up all alone just crying out to be pictured, so that's what we did. We pictured it. Probably having its front bumper scraped off as it drove over the next one inch obstacle, but we pictured it anyway.

And besides all that, cutting a long story rather short because I am after all still very much on holiday and have much better stuff to do with my impending lack of time, we had only spent four or so hours doing nothing much but enjoying every minute of the excursion and had to come away only because we needed to be ready for a second meeting cum get together with Alex and Dan at their place where we would all sit around a large table, amidst good company and conversation, while drinking copious amounts of liquids of varying alcoholic toxicity and getting ourselves stuck into a large and healthy meal later on during the evening. Life is so very very hard over here.