Log Fifty Three – Winter in the North

24 July 2019

A point of clarification for readers from the northern hemisphere – we in Australia head north for the sunshine in contrast to your need to fly south for winter.

We have successfully made it to Queensland and spent a week in Brisbane after a brief delay in Narrabri to complete a Saturday morning 5 km Parkrun.

I am trying to complete Parkruns in towns starting with the letters of the alphabet. I have visited 11 different towns including two in the UK but I needed the letter N and hence the delay in Narrabri. There will be many more Parkruns over the period of this trip.

After a week staying with family and catching up on 1st birthday parties and all the family gossip it was time to head north. I also got to do another Parkrun this time in Zillmere. I think there is only one town that starts with Z in Australia that has a Parkrun. It’s a must do.

This time my sister and brother-in law joined us in our escape from the big city of Brisbane.

The further north we travelled the more winter was becoming a fading memory. Regular checks of the weather sites reinforced for us that this trip north was more than justified considering the bleak temperatures our friends were enjoying at home. I also had the irrestible urge to remind them of what they were missing via regular messages and emails.

We have been staying in 1770 for the past few days. The town is so named after Jimmy Cook (Captain Cook to those less familiar with the navigator) dropped in here 250 years ago. Unlike the Hawiians the locals were happy for the short visit and for the English ship to continue on its journey without resorting to violence. Of course we now have all sorts of laws and surveillance vessels to stop such foreign incursions of raggard foreigners turning upon our beaches. These days Jimmy would probably claim to be an economic refugee escaping Brexit.

Our travels have taken us through that part of Australia where our tomatoes, lettuces and all sorts of ‘summer’ produce are produced all year round. We now expect fresh mangoes, stawberries, tomatoes, lettuce, etc to be available regardless of the season. This has it upside like dropping into a strawberry farm and buying a large tray of ‘second’ stawberries ie those the supermarkets reject. We gorged for the next two days on oversized strawberries all for $5.00.

On our way to 1770 we stopped one night at a ‘free’ camp which was more like a parking lot, one block back from the main street of Childers. Childers is a classic Queensland country town with three pubs in the main street, each one over a 100 years old. It’s nice to see some of this Australian architecture still remaining.